


Death To Everyone

by handful_ofdust



Series: Death Is A Friend (Of Ours) [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 00:55:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 60,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2249856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handful_ofdust/pseuds/handful_ofdust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to "This Old Death", covering five years in the future of that narrative. Rick's deal with the Devil doesn't work out exactly as either of them think it will.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

NOW:

  
When they've finally shaken off the last of Negan's men and doubled back and forth enough to disguise their trail, Cynthiana takes them in, just like Rick Grimes hoped it would. Things are tight, granted—it's close quarters, particularly with the Governor still in tow, high as a kite and raving by this point, flailing so much they're forced to tie him down; Lilly Chambler helps Morgan take one bullet out of his shoulder in five separate pieces, another out of his side, where it skittered across a rib and lost enough momentum to simply lodge between muscle-walls without penetrating anything truly hard to fix. Not to mention how Philip Blake sick is like Philip Blake every other way, larger than life, unignorable. But Morgan and Andrea wrangle him full of antibiotics they can probably ill-afford to give away, and after that it's a waiting game, mostly: waiting and watching while his fever subsides, cooling by slow degrees.

  
Three days in, Andrea packs up her son and leaves with Michonne riding escort, telling Rick she's going to a secondary apartment they keep across town, sorry she can't tell him where. “I don't want Dale here when he wakes up,” is all she'll say, and he can kind of understand why; kid's as blond as she is but he already has Philip's build—all windmilling arms and legs, like a spider-monkey—plus a fair portion of his pout, too, whenever balked of something he's particularly set on.

  
“Really don't think he's gonna be thinking about that, given all's just passed,” Rick tries to assure her, only to have her shoot back: “But you don't _know,_ Rick. Do you?”

  
To which there's no easy answer, obviously. Because no, that's true enough—even after all this time, he very much does not.

  
Doesn't spend every waking minute by the man's bedside, after that, but Rick does put in his time, 'cause it seems the literal least he can do. Sits there listening to the Governor alternately plead with and berate the empty air, eye rolled back and his mouth fixed square, sliding from moment to moment like he's surfing through his past. Some of what he says is predictable, some less so, but it's all disturbing in its own way, eventually driving away any lingering spectators. 'Till at last Rick's left alone, free to watch him snarl at nothing like a rabid dog. Saying, in quick succession:

  
“You're fine, Penny, gonna be fine; she's just _fine,_ Milton, goddamn you...fine, you're fine, honey. Daddy's gonna...no no no, you're _fine,_ do not, do _not_ leave me, oh Christ, my baby baby baby...”

  
“Put it over there. No time, compartmentalize. Put it over there; don't think about it, don't. Put on the face. Smile, you fucking fuck. I said, _smile._ ”

  
“Oh God, I am... _such_ a terrible person. I am. Just...terrible. I. Am. _Terrible._ ”

  
Terrible, like the Great and Terrible Oz. Like he's trying that last one on for size, somewhat liking it even if it scares him— _because_ it scares him, maybe. Like a boast, not a confession. One of those daily affirmations Lori was doing, for a while there: _I love myself, accept myself. I'm the only one of me there is. I wouldn't change me if I could._

  
“Whatever has to be done,” Philip mutters to himself, wet head flopping, slicking the pillow beneath. “WhatEVER. No right, no wrong. The only thing, the only...fuck you, old man, you're dead, he's dead, but I'm not, I'm alive. Only person could've ever beat me down is Rick, and he came back to me instead, even after everything—back on his knees, to tell me he's mine, all mine. I damn well _won_ that round.”

And: _fuck you, on my_ knees, Rick thinks, a bit offended. _Not to mention how I never in my life said I was “yours,” either..._

  
But what's it really matter, in the end? He might as well've, given how it all turned out.

  
“I _won,_ ” Philip repeats, teeth bared, silver tongue gone cold and grey in his open, panting mouth, visibly sickness-coated. And passes out again, before Rick can hope to get a word of objection in edgewise.

  
By day five, Rick overhears Daryl and Michonne discussing where best to dump his corpse so it won't draw biters, and all but resigns himself to helping them carry out the body. But that same afternoon, Philip simply wakes up once more, fever blasted away: coughs wrackingly, opens his eye. Peers up at Rick with hair sweat-matted and patch slightly askew, takes a second to recognize him, then has the incredible bad taste to actually sketch a smile.

  
And: _God hates me, obviously,_ Rick thinks, frankly amazed. _Since all's He had to do was let one more man die, amongst so many, for me to've finally been free..._

  
But then again, the subsequent thought occurs, God's probably right to, overall. 'Cause at this point, Rick pretty much hates Him, too.

  
“Hey,” Philip says, meanwhile, unaware of any of the above—voice deep as ever yet worn somehow thin, like it's been scraped. “How long...?”

  
“Almost a week.”

  
“Seriously? Jesus Christ. Is everybody—you seen Meghan? Thought she maybe broke away from your boy, Carl; they were strugglin', just out the corner of my...” he trails off, studying Rick's face. “But she didn't make it, did she,” he says, almost to himself. Then: “Alive, at least?”

  
“Last I saw, yeah.”

  
“Well, that's somethin'.” He coughs again, swallows. “Where's Lilly?”

  
“Around. Doesn't want to talk to you, though; she told me to tell you that, if and when you woke up.”

  
“Well, I want to talk to _her._ Gotta make her see, I gotta...try and explain...”

  
“Nobody wants to hear it, Philip. They're all still pretty pissed with you.”

  
“What in the holy hell for?”

Rick shakes his head, unable to keep from snorting. Replying, as he does: “Oh, that'd be 'cause you burnt the _town_ down, primarily. Then killed Pete, left Mitch to die, let Alisha fall back and _blow herself up with a damn grenade_ to cover your retreat...”

  
“ _Our_ retreat, Richard—wasn't doin' it alone, much as it might've felt that way, and if I hadn't created a distraction, we'd _all_ be dead. Mitch and Alisha were soldiers, they knew the risks. As for Pete...he should've gotten out of my way when I told him to, that's all.”

  
“Don't think Tara really sees it that way, about Alisha. And Pete, he just wanted to go back for Mitch—you know, his brother? I know at least one person here who'd sympathize.”

  
Philip lets his mouth twist, contemptuous, to show just what he think of _that_ idea. “Mitch was dead already, you saw it happen. Day I start caring what Daryl Dixon thinks of me, meanwhile—”

  
All at once, Rick's so tired he can barely stand to listen, so he cuts him off without further ado: “Listen, you asked and I answered, end of story. I'm not the person you need to persuade, on this particular issue.”

  
“Goddamn ingrates. Where are we, anyhow? I don't—” He looks out the window, frowns. “It does look familiar.”

  
“Cynthiana, Philip. We're back in Cynthiana.”

  
“ _That_ shit-heap? I mean, I know you used to live here and all, but...wait a minute. Why'd you think to come this way, exactly? Looks pretty...fortified, for a town been left empty five years, street full'a biters or not. Who runs this place?”

  
“Morgan Jones.”

  
“Morgan, Christ. He's been here the whole time, and you didn't tell me?” Rick half-shrugs, half-nods, not even trying to lie about it anymore. “Who else?”

  
“Daryl Dixon. Michonne. Andrea.”

  
“Huh.” Then, after a moment: “...she ever have that kid, or what?”

  
“Not my place to say.”

  
“So she did.” He pauses again, then asks: “It look like me?”

  
 _Oh boy, does he,_ Rick thinks, but doesn't say. Just gets up, sighing, pausing a moment to see just how weak the Governor is—not strong enough to stand, any rate, though he's doing his level best to struggle into a sitting position: Philip Blake, force of goddamn nature. If it does turn out the only thing can kill him really _is_ Rick, then Rick's gonna feel pretty stupid for not just smothering him where he lay, especially now it looks like that time has well and truly passed.

  
And: “Richard...” the Governor begins. But: “Be back in a few, with food,” Rick calls, over his shoulder, stepping out. Then shuts the door on him, decisively.

  
***

  
Later, in the main council-room, Morgan stands with his hands on his hips as Philip all but hugs the wall, Rick playing human crutch by one elbow, automatic as ever; can see Michonne frowning at him while he does it, but it doesn't make him stop. It's habit and nothing more, easy as breathing.

  
“See, we kind of took a poll,” Morgan says, “while you were out. 'Do you want the Governor here, Y/N?' Overwhelmingly, the answer was 'N.'”

  
Philip blinks, slowly. “Extend this poll to the Woodbury contingent too, or was it more an in-house sort'a thing?”

  
Morgan laughs. “Hell, Woodbury was the _swing_ vote here, hoss. Really shit the bed with those folks, just like I always knew you would.”

  
“Uh huh. But this isn't really about _them,_ though. Is it?”

  
“Nope. Remember Duane, _Philip?_ My only son was fourteen damn years old, and you talked him into gettin' himself killed for you, 'cause that's what generals do, politicians, _kings._ Which is why Cynthiana is—and always has been, since we first moved back in here—an official No Kings zone.”

  
“Could set that aside, though, couldn't we, if we wanted?” Rick asks. “Just try to live together, at least for a little while, 'till Negan leaves the area—”

“No, Rick, we can't: not me, not with him. 'Sides which, Negan's all y'all's problem, primarily. He doesn't even know we're here, and I aim to keep it that way.”

  
Now it's Philip's turn to laugh. “Good luck with that,” he says, grinning down at Morgan sidelong, in that patented way which always makes Rick want to punch him in the dick.

  
It's all bravado, though, really, and it peels away fast once he and Rick are alone, packed into a ratty little Honda with a full tank and no bumper plus as much else as Morgan's people can spare: camping equipment, two guns, a box of bullets. That's when he just sits there staring at nothing, arms crossed, holding himself like he's cold. Got a look on his face like he's replaying everything that's happened over the last (hell, month) on loop, trying to figure out exactly what went wrong and where, when, how. Rick thinks he should probably be taking it back a little further, like maybe five years, or even seven, but there's no point in going into all that right now. No point in kicking a guy when he's down, 'specially if you're bound to need his biter-killing skills, later on.

  
 _Maybe I do deserve it,_ he admitted, hoarse with self-pity, once “sentencing” was done, just before Rick opted to go with him. _Hell, I brought all this down on us; it's karma, or judgement, like my Old Man would've said. Deserve to just—go off into the red zone, get eaten alive and shit out whole, stagger 'round rotting 'till somebody puts a bullet in my brain..._

  
 _Man, just shut the hell up, and save the Oscar speech for later. Wherever you go, you won't go there alone._

  
_Oh no, you can stay here, Rick—you_ should _. They all like_ you.

  
 _I already SAID shut up, didn't I? So...do it, damnit._

  
_...yessir, Officer._

  
And: _Shit, Rick, don't do this to yourself, man,_ Morgan put in, here, shaking his head in frustration. _He's got you all twisted up here, just like usual. I know you want to take the sins of the world on yourself, but be serious; we both know who's the real Devil, in this situation—_

  
 _Oh yeah, 'cause the Governor's the fount of all evil in this world, right? 'Cause I never had_ anything _to do with that._ Now it was Rick's turn to laugh, a bitter-tasting guffaw, dredged up from somewhere deep inside. _Hell, Morgan, I'm just as guilty—guiltier, really. 'Cause I took the path of least resistance, gambled that'd keep the people I cared about safe...and I lost, man._ They _lost._

  
 _That ain't your fault, though..._

  
_Wasn't it? You hear about Shane, Lori, what happened to them? Hear 'bout what happened to Carl, after?_ As Morgan nodded, reluctantly: _Then you know that's on me, as much as Philip—might've gone different, I'd only been there. But I wasn't._

  
 _Okay, sure—but it might've gone the exact same way, even if you had been. That guy Negan, he's crazy; crazier than the Gov there, and that's really sayin' something._

  
_Crazy men all 'round in this crap-ass world, for sure, and each with his own army, to boot. Still, I made my choice, didn't I? Made my damn bed. And now I gotta lie in it._

But: _You're an idiot,_ Michonne told him, her manner more than typically ferocious, in the lull just before they left—Rick loading the car while Philip gazed blank-faced up at Lilly and Tara Chambler, watching him hand in hand from an upstairs window, as Daryl perched on a broken wall nearby, monitoring the biters milling 'round in the courtyard below. _Five years I've waited for you to disentangle yourself from that toxic sucker, and what do you go and do? You're gonna get yourself killed, you hick sheriff asshole._

  
 _That's deputy asshole, to you._ Adding, as she glared at him: _Plus—five years...? I don't understand. Why would you—?_

  
Michonne hissed. _Idiot,_ she repeated, while Daryl just huffed, explaining: _It's 'cause she_ likes _you, jackass. Christ, just 'cause you ain't had to hear about it, don't mean she ain't chewed_ my _ear down to the nub with Rick this, Rick that, Rick the fuckin' other..._

  
 _Shut the hell up, hillbilly._

  
_Hey, come up and make me. You don't tell him now, ain't too likely you'll get another shot at it, given where the two of 'em are bound for._ A beat. _Where_ are _you going, anyways?_

  
 _The prison,_ Michonne and Rick answered, almost in unison—then looked at each other, her with one eyebrow up-twitching, as he boggled somewhat at the way their minds fit together. _It's where I'd go,_ she explained, and he nodded. _Walls still standing, got a couple of the fences left up, and better yet, it's been written off for years. Go in small, nobody'll ever know you're there...probably._

  
 _That's the idea, yeah. But you should stay away, just in case they do._

  
_Oh, I'm not looking to show my face 'round that direction, not with your asshole boyfriend in residence._ She paused, before adding: _Ever do get well and truly shed of him, though, you know where to find me._

  
Then it seemed like they were already driving away, before Rick could think to do much more than nod. With Philip next to him like a massive lump, blocking out the sun, and Cynthiana dropping away behind forever. Didn't even notice when he passed what used to be the house Carl grew up in, same one he once stumbled into with his hospital johnny still flapping after waking from his coma so long ago, only to fall on the floor and howl like a sick dog when he found the place was empty.

 _Oh, Lori,_ he thinks; _oh, Carl._ Then stops himself; sniffs hard, sinks his teeth into his lip, 'till he draws blood. And keeps the hell on going.

  
***

  
They make the red zone by dusk, set up camp before full dark and light the tiniest possible fire, screened on all sides, to keep it from being spotted by biters or Savior patrols alike. But it makes for a raw, brief, sketchy night—Rick feels like they can't take shifts, can't really trust him to be left alone on watch, an assumption only borne out when one female walker comes shuffling out of the trees towards them and Philip doesn't appear to notice she's there, not even when she trips over the fire-pit's rim and flops down on it, burning and moaning, within easy reaching distance. It's only when Rick grabs his knife and skewers her through the skull that he finally jolts awake; sits bolt upright with a sort of baffled, _hey, that's MINE_ look on his face, before realizing what a spectacle he's making of himself.

  
“Was gettin' to that,” he mumbles, finally, sheepish. As Rick just snaps back: “Yeah, well—don't feel like you have to put yourself _out_.”

  
In the morning, the car won't start; probably unintentional on Morgan's part, not that it much matters. One way or the other, they have to walk the rest of the way, half-jogging, constantly alert and Philip goes even further into a sort of disconnected daze, mind elsewhere, body on automatic—not exactly good company, but useful, once they finally start drawing a crowd. They take off through the woods, blundering past the remains of dead camps, barely avoiding falling headlong into a river, a mud-bank, the only catch-pit Shane's group had time to dig before Lori went into labor and they headed towards Woodbury. And there it is, up the top of the hill: Meriweather County Correctional, large as life and twice as ugly.

  
Pursued from front and behind in much the same way he, Michonne, Morgan and Daryl were, that first time—and Christ, Rick can barely bear to think about it now, remember how happy Carl was to see him, let alone Lori, and Shane—they kill their way into the prison one geek at a time, Philip snapping awake under fire; he goes full Viking, cutting and punching and stomping like a machine while Rick matches him, both of them starting to flag at the exact same time, struggling to keep up with each other. Everything's mainly intact from the last time Rick saw it, though, and once past the inner fence, they climb up into the guard tower to get a quick night's sleep, only to find that Glenn and Maggie Greene left the main ring of keys up there, along with a helpful guide to which gates and doors they open.

  
“Good God, I hurt,” Rick announces, as Philip just nods, slightly. He's holding his side like he has a stitch, and Rick wonders briefly about the condition of his heart—he's what, five years older? God knows, Rick's own insides feel like they've been flayed, especially his lungs. “You okay?” he asks. “Fine,” Philip replies. “Tired, yeah, that's all. Really tired.”

  
And: _Me too,_ Rick thinks, exhaustedly. _Me goddamn too._

  
At last they fall asleep, tangled up together in a chaste sort of clasp, literally cheek by jowl. In the morning, Rick wakes with the sun in his eyes to realize that Philip's fever is back with a vengeance—he's sweat-slick and haggard, burning up. Retches and spits on the floor, then staggers to his feet, cracking his back elaborately. “I'm _fine,_ ” he claims, once more, when asked. “Let's just get the hell to it.”

  
So they kill their way from tower to nearest safety gate, get inside, check the place over painstakingly, methodically, before crashing. The prison is dusty and dank, but B Block—where everybody was living, last Rick saw it—is still intact, still locked down and viable. He seems to recall the back half was hit worse, with D Block a complete loss, open at its ass-end to all and sundry. Shane said they contemplated using it as a last resort if anyone broke through, both as an exit and potential secret weapon: oh yeah, right this way, follow our escape trail straight into a nest of walkers. That'll probably still work, if they need it to; have to keep it in mind.

  
Philip finds an upper-tier cell that still has sheets on the beds and flops down on it, arm up over his eye, blocking everything out. Doesn't move the whole time Rick's searching through the rest of the place, easily discovering that Shane and company must have opted to leave the really heavy cans behind when they made their own exodus. He goes through Philip's pack, finds the can-opener.

  
“We got...cold beans and pork or peaches in syrup, your choice. I'd go for the syup if I was you—might brighten your mood up a tad.”

  
Muffled: “Don't care.”

  
“Yeah, I can see that. You need to stop feelin' sorry for yourself, man.”

  
“Nobody else much likely to do it for me.”

  
“Well, you're right about that.” Rick lets that sink in, waits 'til Philip lowers his arm far enough to show he's listening, before adding: “Oh, what—not expecting agreement? Too damn bad.”

  
“I didn't make _all_ this happen, you know.”

  
“True,” Rick agrees. “Call the central cascade of fuck-ups...half yours, maybe; maybe a third, you factor in sheer dumb bad luck. And as far as the rest, _I_ 'm the one did all that.”

  
“Don't be stupid.”

  
“Oh, I'm not. Somewhat wish I was, 'cause then I'd at least have an excuse. But no, I knew what I was doin', every step of the way. Be a real disappointment to find out you _didn't,_ if so.”

  
Philip shakes his head, slowly. “I knew too,” he admits, after a good long pause.

  
Rick doesn't bother to nod. Just replies: “That's what I always thought.”

 

***

  
The water in the showers runs cold, but it does run, at least, and after his own trip through—refreshing, in its frigid way—Rick's eventually able to force Philip in under the same stream head-first, stripped to the waist, though he's unexpectedly shy about getting completely naked. He emerges cursing, shaking his overlong hair like a dog, then consents to sit there shivering while Rick attempts to groom that awful sick-beard of his into shape. So strange to see how streaked with grey it is these days, even worse than his sideburns, but then, so's Rick's. They're neither of them getting any younger.

  
“Could probably shave with this, you wanted to, you just took it slow enough,” he suggests, nodding at Philip's knife, to which Philip makes a noise that's half grunt, half barking laugh. “Killed about a hundred biters on our way in here, if you didn't notice,” he replies. “Only way that's comin' anywhere near my face is if we boil it.”

  
“Well—”

  
“—by which I basically mean I'm not doin' it, Richard, so that's that.”

  
“At least comb the thing, then, for Christ's sake.”

  
“With _what,_ exactly?”

  
“Your goddamn fingers, goddamn it!” Rick explodes, finally, after what feels like weeks of provocation. “ _Jesus,_ you're one high-maintenance son-of-a-bitch, 'specially for a man with shit-point nothin' left to be so Godalmighty _proud_ of!”

  
They glare at each other for a minute, like they're going to throw down right there and then, and Rick all but feels his nail-beds start to itch, like they long to form claws. Then Philip's grimace slides sidelong, twists further, squaring almost into a sob, and Rick heaves a great sigh. “Come here, fool,” he says, opening his arms, and wraps the Governor close before he can object, not that he seems all too likely to. Holds him, feeling him vibrate all over with miserable frustration, self-directed anger, with a baffled urge to kill and never stop killing but a sad lack of things _to_ kill, 'sides from those staggering dead assholes outside.

  
Once upon a time, Rick might have been legitimately afraid all that rage would turn his way, especially under stress. But he knows better now; he's pretty much the only thing Philip has to cling to—spectator or audience, back-up or partner, object of affection or what—and that's only 'cause he volunteered for the position. So he just holds on and doesn't let go, not 'till Philip finally bows his shaggy head far enough to dig his face into Rick's shoulder, lips pulled back, so Rick can feel his teeth print the skin.

  
“Don't know what to do,” he whispers, at last, hot and muffled, low enough to make Rick's insides thrum. “Think and think, but it's no use, I can't plan, there's no...I just...this is it, I guess—the end, of every damn thing. Lost it all: Woodbury, Meghan, Lilly...”

  
“Them, yeah—but I'm here, still, and you. Aren't we?”

  
“For all the good _that_ does.”

  
Rick sighs again. “Hell, look at it this way: even if we're done for, there's still the rest, isn't there? A whole world of it, and that goes on no matter what.”

  
“Dead people and live assholes with guns want to string us up, you mean? Yeah, that's a comfort.”

  
“Okay, then _don't_ think—be quiet, for once in your life. Go the hell to sleep, and wake up feeling better. Nothing we can do about it now, anyhow.”

  
There's a long, taut silence, barely grazed by breathing. Then—

  
“I can't believe that,” Philip Blake says, to no one in particular. While Rick Grimes thinks, at the same time: _Well, Governor...that's always been your basic problem, thus far. Hasn't it._

  
***

  
Next morning starts with a boom and a crash, the sound of treads and vehicles over chain-link, of biters half-crushed and groaning, head-shots popping like firecrackers. Not to mention a cheerful, horribly familiar shout, rising up about it all: “Hey, Governor—Officer Friendly! Brought ya your _tank_ back!”

  
Philip jack-knifes up from where he's been sleeping, hair sweat-spiked, almost hitting his head on the cell's upper bunk; Rick's already on his feet, hairs at the nape of his neck lifting, even in this humidity. “Who—?” Philip starts to growl, but Rick just rolls his eyes at him, like: _Really? Who the fuck else you think it'd be, given_ our _luck?_...and since Philip's never been dumb, sadly, he picks the idea up pretty quick.

  
“Negan?” he asks. To which Rick just nods, breaking open his Colt, checking how many bullets he's got left in his reloader—a worthless gesture, given, but it gives him something to do with his hands, to calm the shaking. While from outside, the man himself yells—

  
“Talk about your Hollywood ending! Man, it's just like Butch and Sundance, ain't it? Or Bonnie and fuckin' Clyde, more like. Now come down, 'fore I start shooting this place full of holes.”

  
Rick looks over at Philip, fearing the worst—and sees him crack a smile instead, for real, this time: that old, lopsided smirk, kind he'd get when comfortable enough to poke fun at himself, amused beyond belief at this sorrowful world's black shenanigans. Sees him pull himself up full height, smoothing his hair back into managable shape, like any other exiled ruler about to take in visitors: all odd berserker dignity under immediate threat, cheered out of his existential funk by finally having something worth pitting himself against.

  
“You heard the man, Richard,” he says, grinning even wider. And holds out his hand.


	2. Chapter 2

THEN:

  
Rick's different since he came back from the prison, as almost everyone in Woodbury agrees. But that's mostly put that down to the shock of finding out his newly-restored best friend in the world was willing to try and kill everybody in town even after they let him use the med center, kidnap Rick on the way out and beat him to holy hell, then go running off with Rick's wife, son and that new bastard baby girl, leaving him to make his way home alone before the Governor even had time enough to mount a rescue. They've all seen his injuries, after all; it's only understandable he's got some residual trauma to work through left over.

So if he seems uncharacteristically short-tempered and uncompromising these days, instead of the good ol' reliable Officer Friendly they once knew, it must be because he's trying his best to re-orient himself under pressure, to get his own head straight so's he can bind himself back just as tightly to Woodbury and its citizens as they need him to.

  
Cut-rate therapy for the post-apocalypse, self-performed, without a license—it's not for everybody, but it's all they have. And: “Thank God he's got the Governor,” Papa Carter observes, fervently, as almost everybody but Shumpert and Martinez—who know better, but aren't about to say anything—nods in agreement, while Rick resists the urge to laugh hysterically. 'Cause it _is_ truly amazing the fairytales people will tell themselves when they don't know the way the facts really shake down, as Philip's often enough remarked...and this time, in all honesty, Rick really does has to agree. Much as he doesn't like what it does to him, to do so.

  
Days he spends working for the public good, like always: killing biters, raising walls, raising new civic ordinance after new civic ordinance in council and staring Philip Blake in the single remaining eye as he does so, knowing no matter what they are, the deal they've made together means the Governor's gonna sign off on them without protest. And nights, once they've screwed each other into temporary oblivion yet again, he folds himself against that all-too-pausible sociopath's long body like a second skin—tries to suck up some of that violent heat, absorbing the man's trick of not caring about anything he doesn't want to along with it. But maybe that's just something you have to born with, or born without.

 _You stand in front, I'll stand behind or beside, whichever best lets me protect you from your own bad ideas,_ Rick told him, that first night they signed the deal, when he threw himself back in the Governor's bed with a literal vengeance and made him feel every inch of it, more punishment than consummation: high in the saddle, but well aware how if he didn't keep tight hold of the reins, that big bastard was just likely to buck him right the hell back off again. _From now on, you need to listen to me—no more lies, no more drinking, no more goddamn zombie heads. Accept you got no power over me 'cept what I'm willing to give you, or just go on ahead and kill me now..._

  
He's not gonna, though, no matter the subsequent provocation; been enough time passed in the interim, Rick's almost sure of that. Though to tell the truth, Rick's getting a bit so he doesn't much care either way, whether he does or doesn't.

  
One good thing you can say about the Governor, though: he's definitely not a sore winner, which Rick appreciates, especially in these first few weeks, 'cause if he was, it'd make him _really_ hard to like. And while Rick didn't intend to throw himself back into the physical side of things quite so hard, at least not at first, when he thinks about it later, he realizes it's as good a way of dealing with the grief as any—the pain and regret of hoping deep in his heart he'll never see Lori, Carl and Shane again, of having abandoned them in order to spend the rest of his life leading Philip Blake around by the nose, or something a bit further down.

  
So unnatural, to love them the way he still does, yet effectively pray they never cross his path again for as long as this mutual madness persists. Rick longs to drink it away, but given he's essentially taken that off the table for the Governor, as an option, the impulse feels somewhat...unfair to indulge in alone, even unjust, hilarious as that might sound. So this is as good an alternate way to disappear as he can currently think of, mind wiped clean in a nightly haze of mutual orgasm. Actually, last time Rick got this much consecutive tail was probably his honeymoon, when the only reason they stopped doing it twice-nightly was because Lori eventually developed friction burns from that nice new bedroom carpet.

  
This is man on man, however, with both of them giving exactly as good as they get. So he sleeps over almost every night, trying his level best to drown himself, and Philip subsequently spends a lot of his leisure time enjoying the full spread of victory spoils, gone fuck-happy as some long, rangy cat in heat: nuzzly, preening, voracious. They wring each other out, pile bites on top of bruises only to start all over again the very next night or maybe next afternoon, depending on how much they've got on their civic plate, any given business day. Make out for twenty minutes at a time, Philip's hand busy between Rick's thighs, while Rick gasps and groans and Philip just laughs, like he's the best toy ever. After which Rick will knock Philip back and haul his fly down in turn, doing much the same, 'til his eye turns up and he starts in to cursing God.

  
He's a creature of appetites, the Governor, huge as the rest of him. But if he thinks Rick Grimes can't keep up, he's sorely mistaken—literally so.

  
“Ungh, you're evil, Richard,” he half-complains sometimes, wincing—but only half-, since it seems to make no never-mind whatsoever for him to let someone else be on top. “How you think it's gonna look, I can't walk down the damn street tomorrow?”

  
And: “Like you deserved it, probably,” Rick usually growls back, hammering at him like he's drilling concrete, which only makes Philip laugh the more.

  
“Maybe so,” he'll agree, fisting the bedsheets. Then turn to meet Rick's next kiss halfway and bite his tongue as he does, sharp enough to pay him back in kind.

  
“Got no shame at all, do you?” Rick asks him afterwards, amazed, to which he just shrugs, replying: “Nope. Why should I? Pleasure's pleasure; be just as good for me either way, even if you _weren't_ enjoyin' it more than enough for the both of us.” Then adds, stretching: “'Sides which, you really want to hurt me, you're gonna have to try a whole lot harder.”

  
“That a challenge?”

  
“Hah! A _challenge_ would be lettin' me into _your_ business for once, not that I guess you're up for it. 'Sokay, though; not everybody's got the balls to give up that much control, 'specially when they're sort of...small-sized to begin with.”

  
Rick shoots him a look, frankly baffled, as well as vaguely off-put. “Are you tryin' to _dare_ me into lettin' you put your dick up my—?”

  
“Oh no, not at all; perish the thought.” A beat. “Just be sure and tell me when it starts to work.”

  
“You mean if!”

  
Yet one more laugh, deeper than before and darker, as Philip turns back over. And: “No, I don't,” he says, gathering him in, his grip too tight for Rick to break without struggling.

  
***

  
Of everybody Rick comes into daily contact with, it's only the tank camp crew who never knew Rick Before, which probably explains why some of them—Mitch Dolgen in specific, the piece of equipment in question's dumb-ass operator—seem to be having so much trouble dealing with Rick After. Doesn't help he's ex-army, 'cause the last thing to go with those types always seems to be the general idea that whether out of uniform or not, any given soldier's better than any given civilian...but then again, maybe he just doesn't like cops.

  
“Governor wants you both on committee tomorrow,” Rick tells him and his brother Pete one morning as they emerge from the North Gate chow-line, Martinez and Shumpert flanking along right behind. “Gonna be discussing fortifications, and we need you two on board. Starts at noon, so be there for eleven-thirty.”

  
Pete nods, but Mitch strikes a pose with arms crossed and cap shoved back, mouth in an automatic half-sneer, like he's doing some bad Jack Nicholson impression. “Pete was USACE, not me, so what'm I gettin' tapped for? I got things to do.”

  
Rick snorts. “Not too likely.”

  
“Hey, tank maintenance's a full-time job, man!”

  
“Ride's not gonna rust up you leave it lay a couple hours, slick—'sides which, I already checked the roster, which says you haven't volunteered for a damn thing the last month or so. Might've been different where you bunked before, but this is Woodbury, and we got rules: everybody pulls their weight, citizenship equals contribution. Can't have one without the other.”

  
“Oh yeah? So who was it died and made _you_ king shit of turd city?”

  
At this, Rick finally stops, turns back—looks him straight in the eye without flinching, letting his hand drop to one gun-butt as he does. Replying, at the same time: “Listen, Mitch. Get you might be confused, given I wasn't here to greet you when you and yours first got brought in...but do yourself a favour, 'fore you let that mouth of yours get you into trouble. Ask around; ask pretty much anybody. Find out if _they_ all think I'm somebody to be fucked with, just 'cause my shirt says King's County Sheriff's Department 'stead'a Military Police.”

  
Pete puts his hand on Mitch's sleeve, but Mitch just shakes it off, complexion shading red. “'Fucked with,'” he repeats. “Interesting choice of words. You and ol' Govenor One-Eye, there—which one's the Mom and which's the Dad, exactly? Or do ya take turns?”

  
Pausing, Rick takes a moment to shake his head, ever so slightly: It's kinda like Merle Dixon all over again, except for how Pete's no Daryl. And even Merle had the brains not to insult the Governor to Rick's—or any other Woodburyite's—face.

  
“What'd you say?” he asks Mitch, who sniggers, clearly projecting: _Just what it sounded like, Tinkerbell._ Then looks straight at poor Pete, who's making apologetic motions from behind Mitch's back, and nods, ever so slightly.

  
“Yeah,” Rick says, to no one in particular. “That's about what I thought.”

  
He lashes out quick after that, breaking Mitch's nose with one blow, then stomps on his instep before he can do much more in return but howl and try to draw. The gun jumps out of Mitch's hand cartoonishly, hitting the nearest wall at an angle and falling to skitter away under a bush; Pete tries to intervene, only to find Martinez's gun-barrel at his temple. “Really wouldn't, dude,” Martinez tells him, even as Rick steps in to sucker-punch Mitch a few times in the pit of his stomach, driving him to his knees. Mitch howls something that might be string of further slurs, though it's hard to tell when reduced to all vowels, flailing for Rick in completely predictable fashion. But Rick just dodges, steps behind him and snakes an arm around his windpipe, coldly choke-holding him 'til he grunts, sags, starts to pass out. Then leans their cheeks together, and explains, right in Mitch's ear—

  
“Let's not misunderstand each other, okay? You seem to've gotten the impression you're irreplaceable—but the fact is, any moron can drive a tank, as proven. It ain't exactly a state secret. And better yet, you don't need thumbs to do it.”

  
“ _Whuh?_ I—”

  
“Oh, you heard me, Mister Dolgen. If I can't trust you to back me or the Gov up, gotta at least make it so you can't shoot us in the back over some sort of homophobic bullshit, either.”

  
This last gets the right reaction, at least. Mitch jerks as Rick brings him down further, jamming a knee on top of his wrist to hold it still; tries to buck him off and fails, gargling: “Hey, waih—Pete, hehp muh!” Then adds, panicked, as he sees Rick give Shumpert a nod, Shumpert draw his knife and offer it, handle towards Rick's free hand: “Nuh, shih, 'M _sohhy,_ pleah! Pleah, _DOH—_ ”

  
“Officer Grimes,” Pete puts in, at almost the same time, with both hands up. “ _Officer,_ seriously. My brother's stupid, you're right about that, but he'll never do it again, I'll see to that. We'll be at that meeting, with bells on.”

  
“I want to believe that, Pete. Can I?”

  
“You can. Mitch? Tell the man I'm right already, for fuck's sake.”

  
Rick slackens his grip just a bit, to let him do so; feels Mitch swallow, painfully, adam's apple fluttering against his inner arm. And: “...yeah,” Mitch manages, eventually, hoarsely. “Thass right. I was jus'...bein' an asshole. Won'...do it 'gain.”

  
“Good,” Rick agrees, letting him fall. To Pete: “No second chances, though, so keep it in mind—been a change of policy, since Shane Walsh and his came through here. You give this place the respect it deserves or we kick you both out, start up a call to bring the biters running, and keep your damn tank.” To Mitch, meanwhile: “And if you think this is just about you, me, and the Governor, think again. Everybody here goes armed, women and kids included, and once word goes 'round about this little interaction—which it will, believe me—they're all gonna be watching.”

  
“Got it,” Pete says, helping Mitch back up as his brother just groans, sneezing blood. “We both know the score, now, so...thank you. You won't regret it.”

  
 _Already do,_ Rick thinks, but doesn't say. Instead, he nods and watches 'till they're out of sight, veering off towards the med centre, while Shumpert and Martinez exchange a telling glance. Then asks, without turning: “Something you wanna say, Caesar—Cleveland?”

  
Shumpert shakes his head. But Martinez shrugs, and replies: “So, you and the Gov...you guys just basically ain't even gonna try to hide what you got goin' anymore, that the general plan?”

  
“Didn't seem much point, considering.”

  
“Yeah, guess not.” A beat. “Carters ain't gonna like it, though.”

  
Rick shrugs. “Then that's between us and the Carters. Somehow doubt they're gonna go looking for alternate arrangements, just on lifestyle issues alone.”

  
“Yeah, all right. Hey, live an' let live, you know; never had much of a problem with who was doin' who before, personally, let alone with this whole End Of The World As We Know It thing goin' on. So if him fuckin' you on the regular gets you through, then whatever, man...”

“Might be I fuck _him,_ though. Ever think of that?”

  
Another look, as Shumpert gives a little shudder. “Try not to think about it period, tell you the truth,” Martinez tells Rick, who shrugs again. Because that's certainly fair enough.

  
***

  
By the barbecue that evening, meanwhile, news has indeed apparently made the circuit, causing Tara and Lilly Chambler to give Rick and Philip the eye as they pass by, for what looks like very different reasons. And: “Don't think I don't know what you're doing,” Philip murmurs to him, smiling and waving, even as Haley tries—and fails—to get Rick's attention, from over by the drinks table. “Playing bad cop, 'cause you think it'll force me to play good...that's pretty subtle, Richard; good play, for a simple country boy. I like it.”

  
“That what I'm doin'? Well. Can't put anything over on you, can I?”

  
“Not 'less I let you, no.” Rick looks away. “But let me guess—you're worried you went too far, right? Don't be. Mitch's a dog, I know the type; barks a good deal, but he'll heel to the strongest bite. That's how the army likes 'em.”

  
“He left the army, though.”

  
“Only 'cause Pete begged him to, same as any other good big brother; like I said, the dynamic's not exactly unfamiliar to me. Pete counts on Mitch to be a fuck-up, like Mitch counts on Pete to get him out of trouble when he goes too far. It'll be fine.”

  
“And if it isn't?”

  
“I'll kill him myself. Kill both of 'em, I think they're any sort of threat: to me, to you. To Woodbury.”

  
“So we're 'Woodbury' now, huh?” Rick scoffs, under his breath. To which Philip simply smiles harder, and replies, hand heavy on Rick's shoulder—

  
“'Course we are, Richard. Always were, to most folks.”

  
 _...and that's why they're not going to care about what we do, just why we do it: for them. For the greater good. The things they don't want to know about. The necessaries._

  
He can fill the blanks in automatically, without even having to think, which he halfways believe should scare him. But the only part which does is how much it doesn't.

  
“You miss them, I know,” Philip will tell him, later on, in the very thick of things. “Carl, Lori...Shane, probably. But they're gonna be okay, take it from me—I know what I'm talking about. They'll always have each other, like you've got me.”

  
Breathless, overheated: “Shut up, Philip.”

  
“'Shouldn't be enjoying this so much, not this way, not with _him_...” That's what you're thinkin', right? Yeah, I can tell. You got no sort of poker-face at all, Richard; it's really charming. Though somewhat impractical, for a lawman.” 

  
“Ugggh, just shut _up,_ Philip, Jesus!”

  
“Hey, all I'm saying is you feel bad about things you don't have to feel bad about, that's your basic problem. Get over that, and this world's your oyster.”

  
“Maybe. And maybe you should feel _worse_ about things, considering...”

  
“Oh, uh huh? And yet.”

  
After, they'll lie there and tell each other things in the darkness that Rick never would've thought of, 'till he hears them fall out of his mouth. Philip's preacher-voice certainly helps that way, as Lori once observed, and the sex gets him feeling close enough to drunk to over-share. Plus the fact that the Governor obviously translates _no more lies_ into _tell me anything comes into your head, however creepy._

  
So: “Didn't know what third base was, hah! Seriously? Not 'til prom?”

  
“I can't believe I ever told you that.”

  
“Hell, I can't believe it either. Okay, Richard, enlighten me—why in the hell would you not've just asked your bangin'-thirty-year-olds-at-fifteen bestie Shane about exactly what went where when, you were that confused? I sure would've.”

  
“No, you wouldn't.”

  
“You're right. I never would've been friends with a guy like that.”

  
“Who _were_ you friends with in high school, exactly?”

  
“Oh, I had a wide and varied aquaintanceship, none of whom I gave a fat rat's ass about. But they were all useful in their own ways, and I like to think I kept them entertained, if nothin' else.”

  
“Don't tell me _you_ were out bangin' thirty-year-olds too.”

  
“Nope. Got a few blow-jobs from guys my Dad's age, here and there; think they told 'emselves I couldn't possibly be underaged, 'cause of the height. Oh, and I got my brother's girlfriend pregnant once, but I'm pretty sure she told him it was his, because that went away quickly—her too, come to think.” Off Rick's look: “Oh, c'mon now! I'm joking about that last part, 'course I am. What kind of person you think I am, anyways?”

  
“I know what kind of person you are, Philip,” Rick hears himself say, before he can quite think not to, and tenses up. But as per usual, Philip's far less insulted than amused.

  
“And I know you, too,” he says, in return, running one big hand down Rick's sweaty thigh, for the pleasure of feeling him shiver. “Very well, at this point. Cozy, isn't it?”

  
 _Oh yes,_ Rick thinks, with something close to despair. And gives himself well and truly up for lost.


	3. Chapter 3

As Martinez aptly predicted, the Carters definitely _aren't_ happy to hear of Rick and the Governor's union, but mostly confine 'emselves to murmuring darkly in the corners—though Papa Carter does drop by at one point while they're in session, mapping out the phases of a literal Five-Year Plan for Woodbury's further development, to touch on _Leviticus_ and just state out loud how he doesn't admire the idea of such fine, community-minded young(ish) men ending up in Hell, on account of not being able to keep their hands out of each other's pants. In return, Philip raises a brow but keeps things courtly, while Rick almost has to swallow his tongue to keep from asking where exactly is is the old man already _thought_ him and Philip were going, given all they've done—separately, as well as together.

  
“Temperance in all things,” Papa Carter tells them, solemnly. “That's what _Proverbs_ says, a book I'm sure you're both familiar with. For 'like a city breached, without walls, is one who lacks control.'”

  
And: “Oh, uh huh?” Rick replies, even as Philip shoots him a look. “As luck would have it, we're actually just workin' on the town's walls right now—what to shore up, where to build. Care to venture an opinion?”

  
“Officer Grimes, please! I'm only thinkin' of your immortal portion, the jeopardy this sort of deviance might plunge it into—”

  
“—and he's well aware of that, Mister Carter, all jokes aside,” Philip puts in, quickly, overtop; “we both are, like you said. But worldly, wicked men as well, sad to say; apt to to lose our way, develop a case of battlefield morals, 'specially when we're thinkin' so hard on all the things so many other people rely on us to fight for.” Adding as the old man nods, unwillingly: “So I'll make you a promise, right here and now—let us get through this next little while, get everybody's ducks in a row, and we'll come straight on back to you for counselling, to try 'n' break ourselves of these...bad habits of ours. That satisfy your concerns?

  
“Not entirely, Governor.”

  
“I understand. But, well—it's that kind'a world, isn't it? Sadly.” Philip waits a beat, smiling, then turns back to the plans, shoulders squaring in clear dismissal; Papa Carter lingers one long moment more, then sighs, and turns to leave. “Thanks for stoppin' by,” the Governor calls after him, not looking up, as he does.

  
“That's gonna be a problem, one of these days,” Rick remarks, the minute the door's closed. But: “Oh, I don't think so,” Philip says, making another notation. “Man's what—pushin' eighty, if he's a day? Might go anytime even without the thousand natural shocks we're heir to, let alone all those flesh-eating zombies, and that family of his are Sunday Baptists at best, without their Daddy watching. 'Long as we keep everybody safe, he's not gonna make the sort of trouble we can't deal with.”

  
“You're pretty confident, for a man with only one eye to keep open.”

  
“One eye, yeah, but _two_ good right hands, and that's nothin' to sneeze at.” Then he cocks his head and grins again, far dirtier this time, half-gaze flicking sidelong, sending a hot shock through Rick's chest. “Which makes me one lucky-ass bastard, really, any way you slice it.”

  
“...true enough.”

  
***

  
The worst thing, Rick often thinks these days, is feeling comfortable, even in his near-constant discomfort. Bereft in one blow of closest friends as well as family, he's reduced the circle of his life so severely now there's literally just him and Philip, Philip and him. Looking back, that's probably how it was all along—but before, he could pretend, then lie to himself. And before even that, he had the luxury of genuinely not knowing.

  
It's hard to be good to other people, to act for the good _of_ other people, when you don't feel good yourself—good or “good,” either way. Sexually satiated to the point of being skinned-dick fucked-out boneless, most nights, yeah; _well_ taken care of, in that particular department, plus there's a certain ill measure of reward in simply knowing himself so essential; needed as well as wanted, the human treat at the end of every tricksy day. But he doesn't love Philip, and on occasion just the mere effort of letting himself _like_ him—which he does more often than not, given the man's smart, can be amusing—feels like a betrayal of all the people Rick threw under the bus not so much to get here, but to stay here.

  
So Philip's happy, or seems to be, but Rick's pretty sure that's not going to last; if there's one thing he's learned, it's that the Governor lives project to project, incapable of complete satisfaction. Let him stand still long enough, he'll start picking at the things closest to him, himself included; he's like a fucking one-eyed shark, that way. Besides which, honeymoons never do last all that long, however enjoyable they might be, in the moment—that's something Rick already well-remembers from his first go-'round, with Lori.

  
When this new routine of theirs inevitably starts to skip and stutter, therefore, the interference will probably begin with Meghan Chambler, the way Rick's always suspected it would: not a bad little gal on her own by any means, just terribly shy, unconfident, her overall maturity-level stunted to mimic that of someone far younger—trauma-bruised, like she's been through a three-year car accident and Rick's taking her information by the side of the road, while one of her parents screams and cries nearby. Not very much like Penny Blake, either, from what he's seen and Philip's let slip, but every time she sidles by he can see something perk up in the Governor's eye: a spark, a tripped connection. Like he's just been reminded where one particular long-term hurt still aches, and how best to soothe it...

  
...but that makes the whole phenomenon sound far more unwholesome than it should, even inside Rick's head; it's not that way, and he knows it. Grantedly, he never “met” Penny 'till she was dead already, but he saw how the man touched her, how he mourned over her: proof positive that Philip Blake loved his only daughter as well as he could, to the outer measure of the exact same extent he can love anything—both fiercely and greedily, possessively yet also sentimentally, with a sort of awful gentleness. A far more innocent version of the same sort of affection he now seems to extend to Rick himself.

  
So he wants that back again, or a version thereof...to play parent, in a more direct way than he ever can with people who've already achieved adulthood. To see himself once more magnified God-sized, reflected in the eyes of a child. And one way or the other, that's a need in him that Rick can't hope to fill, even if he cared to try—he knows Philip too well, by now; _But we can pretend again, can't we?_ won't stretch that far, by a long shot. Which, in turn, spells trouble, in ways the Carters' disapproval never will.

  
Like the Dolgens, like Alisha, the Chambler family came in with the rest of the tank camp contingent, driving a Gorbeli Foods delivery truck stuffed full of roni sticks and Alphagetti cans that'd apparently belonged to Tara and Lilly's father. “Dude was crafty,” Tara tells Rick, proudly, when he presses her for details. “Tough, too—kept his route up all the way to Z-day, even with Stage Four lung cancer. When the news broke, he went over to the Academy and picked me up, then swung by the ER, Meghan's school...he holed up with us, kept us safe, kept us fed. We didn't leave our apartment 'til I had to club his dead body down with his last oxygen tank, and that was pretty much just 'cause Meghan saw me do it, so she couldn't stand to be in the same place he— _re_ -died—anymore.”

  
“Sounds like an amazing man.”

  
“He was, yeah. Didn't exactly _like_ me bein' like I am, but he never got on me about it; took Lilly and Meghan in, after her asshole husband ran off on 'em. God, I loved that guy.” She sniffs hard, then shoots him a look, under lowered lashes. “So, uh...your folks were already gone, right? When the shit hit the fan?”

  
“Yeah, for years. My Dad died when I was younger'n Meghan, so all's I had was my Mom, or sometimes my friend Shane's, 'cause they went to school together—like me and Shane, pretty much. Both of 'em died about a year apart, of cancer, too; Shane's Mama smoked, but with mine it was ovarian, took her down fast. Tell the truth, I'm just as glad she never had to see it.”

  
Rick's interacted far more with Tara than either of the others, because she and Alisha volunteered for Neighborhood Watch duty almost the same day they arrived, which puts them under his command. And also because Tara tends to follow him around like a puppy whenever she gets the opportunity, trying to use him as some sort of role-model. Talks a better game than she can actually back up most of the time, even with Alisha coaching her, and her constant campaign to use patrol as a bonding opportunity can get more than a tad exhausting, on occasion.

  
“You were a cop, huh?” she asked him one recent morning, brightly, as Rick and Alisha—a former ranger, with the sort of all-terrain scouting skills Rick only wishes he'd been able to cultivate—went over the latest survey maps together, looking for new places to hit up for supplies. To which he just nodded, correcting automatically: “Sheriff's deputy, yeah.”

  
“Right, right. I wanted to be a cop, guess you might've heard—about six months away from graduating, give or take, when all this shit started up. I mean, I lost a little traction after this girl Sam in my class went out camping with me, got high and told me she didn't really like girls, but...” Here Alisha shot her a look, making her switch subjects. “And you’re queer, too! Must've been hard, right? Out and proud, in some little hick town...”

  
“Cynthiana's about mid-sized, Miss Chambler, and I wasn't really—”

  
“Shit, sorry! 'Cause you used to date that Katniss Everdeen clone with the bow, and you also had, what—a wife, a kid, back when?”

  
“ _Have_ a wife and a kid, yeah, just like the Governor did before, 'cept how mine're still alive. Just not...here.”

  
“Yup, exactly—they're somewhere else and you 'n' him have sleepovers every night, and whatever. Kinda confusing, dude.”

  
Next to him, Alisha gave a snort, both amazed and amused by her partner's brakeless mouth. “ _Jesus,_ Tara! We've discussed this, baby: not everybody's straight, just like not everybody's gay. There's a word for that.”

  
“Confusing?” Tara suggested, again, while Alisha just rolled her eyes, and Rick felt an honest-to-God blush mount almost to his hairline.

  
As he always does whenever the subject's broached, these days, Rick can't help but notice no one ever asks how _Philip_ identifies himself, or prefers not to—'cause he's the Governor, maybe, so they tend to assume (not inaccurately) he just does whoever he wants, as well as whatever. One way or the other, Rick isn't about to volunteer an opinion on the matter, especially unasked; he simply shrugs, and lets the matter slide.

  
He wonders sometimes what it was like in Philip Blake's house, back when it was just him and...Sarah, her name was Sarah, Philip's told him that, on at least one occasion...and Penny. Just the get-up and go-down, every day; crappy office work, family dinners, car trips, whisky and TV of an evening. Must've been at least okay, for him to even stick around; wasn't the Governor back then, but Rick somehow suspects Philip's rarely submitted himself to anything he wasn't reaping _any_ reward from. Maybe it was about seeming “normal,” even if he never really felt so. Maybe Rick should ask.

  
_She called me from the road,_ Philip let slip, during some long-ago chess match. _And I was in a meeting, gettin' reamed out like usual by my asshole hipster boss, so I didn't pick up; went to voice-mail, but she didn't leave a message. What did she want to say? No way of knowing. Nothing it'd help,_ to _know. She's still just as dead, either way._

  
And: _Same as Penny,_ Rick can't help himself thinking. _Same as..._

  
But no, _no._ Lori's alive, somewhere; Carl, too. He has to make himself believe that, to _keep on_ believing it. Or everything he's done, in the interim—allowed to _be_ done, better (or worse) yet—

  
—was all for goddamn nothing.

  
***

  
Rick's never given much of a damn for golf, but Philip likes to stand on top of the East Gate around dawn and drive shots over the herd's head, see how they react to the stimulus: sluggish and subdued, attention divided, reflexes slow, or snapping and snarling immediately. Rick guesses it's kind of like sticking your hand out the window to see how hard it's raining, if not quite like streaking through the graveyard.

Today they're gappy and wandering, maybe two every ten feet, but that'll change as the sun comes up further, and the nighttime noise ordinances stop being observed. The daily din of Woodbury will bring more of them out, enough to fill the catch-pits 'til they can almost clamber up out again over each other, and that's when the burnings'll begin.

  
“Vile bodies,” Philip observes, winding up for the back-swing, so he can pock a ball straight into one biter's skull. “That's what my old man would've called them; cast-down souls stuck in decaying flesh, cursed by God to be raised in their worms, like at the end of all things. For _they shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation._ ”

  
“Didn't know you could quote Scripture.”

  
“Bits of it, sure. I _am_ the Devil, after all.” He takes another swing, misses. “Huh, son of a bitch! Yeah, I've been thinkin' about Milton Mamet lately, not all too sure why. How he was so damn certain he could bring 'em back, eventually, I just gave him longer to work on it...”

  
“And you believed that too, at the time.”

  
Philip shakes his head, a little sadly. “Oh, I wanted to, wanted it bad—but lookin' back on it now, don't think I ever really did. Never did have that kind of faith; always liked best what I could grab hold of, for good or ill. It's my nature.”

  
Rick just nods, slightly, and doesn't comment. Remembering Philip brushing his dead daughter Penny's hair, so carefully, humming something—was it “Bye, Baby Bunting?”—while she gnawed over a piece of roadkill gristle, grunting like a little humpbacked ghoul. The air so close and hot in that room they both now sleep in, window-blinds drawn shut against the rest of the world, to keep in the stench of rot.

  
And: “Was a favor you did me, Richard, persuading me to...let her go,” Philip tells him, right that very same moment, for all the world like letting Rick have his way with him nightly qualifies him to read Rick's mind. “I know that now, and I thank you for it. It's a lesson most people need to learn, probably, in this world—not that I'd wish it on 'em, oh no. Oh no.”

  
Rick turns and looks at him, then, regarding him narrowly. "Something specific you wanna talk to me about, Philip?"

  
"Hmmm. Now you mention it..."

  
( _Uh huh._ )

  
***

  
“It's just chess, nothin' else,” Philip repeats, keeping up with Rick's stride, so easily it's kind of insulting. “Her grandaddy used to play backgammon with her, but he's dead, and she's sunk into herself since then, as you might've noticed, so Lilly thinks it'd be a good way to get her out of her shell. Not like we'll be alone together, even, 'cause Lilly'll be there, of course.”

  
“Sounds good to me,” Rick says, without turning. “Therapeutic. How long you need me out of the house?”

  
“Well, see, I was thinkin' you and Lilly could kind'a keep each other company, while Meghan and I—”

  
“Yeah, I don't know. See, I was gonna take Tara and Alisha out on survey, try to find that horse farm again, bulk up the cavalry division...”

  
“You can do that some other time, can't you?”

  
Rick feels a surge of impatience so sharp it almost reads like anger, disproportionately large, making his voice tighten. Hears himself snap back, before he can put a hold on it: “What is it you want here, Governor, exactly—my blessing? We're not married, for Christ's sake. You're an adult, so's Ms. Chambler; just go on and do what you want, no need to include me. Meghan's gonna be nervous enough as it is, playing chess with a pirate.”

  
“What's got _your_ tail all in a knot?”

  
“Nothing! I got things to do, is all—stuff. Infrastructural stuff. Kind we discussed.”

  
“You're upset, that's obvious.”

  
“No! I'm just...forget it. I gotta go.”

  
Philip reaches for him. “Slow down a minute, Richard,” he says, trying to catch hold of Rick's shoulder, but Rick manages to dodge. “ _Hey,_ c'mon, now! Just hold on a damn second, so we can—”

  
But: “Nope,” Rick calls back, accelerating, as the impatience/anger/whatever speads over him like a net-full of itchy, burning, biting ants. “I'll see you later, hope it all goes well, say hi to Meghan and Lilly, enjoy your _playdate._ ” And he leaves Philip Blake pretty much frozen in the middle of the street, shoulders squared and spine straight with a big, fake smile on his face, having just caught sight of some passersby watching their interaction, worriedly; as Rick rounds the nearest corner, he can all but hear the gears grinding as Philip tries to figure out how best to reassure 'em: _Hey, folks! Nothin' to see here, no problem at all; Rick and I were just, uh..._

  
( _...shit._ )

  
***

  
Then, all of a sudden—without knowing how he got there, which is a bit of a worry—Rick looks up to find himself at the door of his old apartment, same one he hasn't used since he came back from the prison. Because it's just been easier to let himself fall asleep next to the Governor every night, allow consciousness to fade bit by bit as the sheets cool around them, slipping down into mainly-dreamless darkness only to wake next morning with a hard-on and a headache, ready for yet another busy goddamn day; something to be said for knowing there's no one else you'd trust to sleep in the same room with you, even if it's mainly just 'cause you don't want to sleep alone not so much for emotional reasons, but because somebody might genuinely try to kill you while you're at your most physically vulnerable, otherwise. Though God knows, it's just possible Philip might enjoy the idea of Rick sitting there staring at him all night, knife in hand, wondering where best to stab him so he'll be dead before he can wake up...

  
But: Ugh, just shut up, shut _up_ , he tells himself, hands starting to tremble. Stop thinkin', for one damn minute—thinkin' of the goddamn Governor, at least. Go in, get your head clear. Figure out what to do next.

  
Sounds plausible enough. So—he rummages in his pocket, finds the key, and does. Only to hear, as he's just about to pull the door closed, a voice behind him say:

  
“Rick...it's me, Haley. We need to talk.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Was beginning to think you were never gonna come back here again,” Haley says, from the bed, and Rick almost has a damn heart attack. She's just sitting there on the bed, fully dressed, her eyelids red; he has his gun part-drawn before he can stop himself, but slides it back in, thumbing the holster-catch.

“Holy crap,” he says, pulse still hammering. “Yeah...pretty selfish of me to keep this place, I guess. I should pobably put it back in rotation, 'case there's a family comin' in needs it next...” Trails off, then asks: “Been waiting long?”

  
“Better part of the last three days, off and on.”

  
“Wait, seriously? Why wouldn't you just tell me? I'd've met you somewhere else, easy, it was all that urgent—”

  
She gives a laugh, bitterer than he's used to hearing her. “Oh yeah? Seems unlikely, given the way you've been avoiding me. Governor keeps you busy, though, I guess.”

  
“Well, yes he does. Always did.”

  
“Uh huh. And more so than ever, these days.”

  
No point in trying to deny it, so he doesn't; just waits. And after a moment or two, her face relaxes slightly, sliding from almost-anger to almost-sorrow plus—something else, more obscure, recognizable yet unfamiliar. Something he's seen at least once, under circumstances important enough to leave a scar, but never again...'till now.

  
“I'm pregnant,” she blurts, finally. To which Rick can't think of anything to say, clever or otherwise, but: “What?”

  
“You heard. Yours, if you're wondering.”

  
“Oh, I—yeah, I...didn't doubt it.” He sits down, heavily, just time enough for a hundred other stupid things to rush into his head, though he's weirdly proud to note he doesn't actually allow them to spill from his mouth. Stuff like _You sure?_ and _How'd that happen?_ , the latter particularly ridiculous, considering he used to be—still _is,_ God fucking damn—married. So: “Um...how long?” is all he lets himself ask, instead.

  
“Three months, Doc Stevens says.” _Too long to do anything about it,_ part of him whispers, not that that was every really an option, just as she adds, with a terrible sort of optism: “Be a Christmas baby, I guess, all things gong well.”

  
“Mmm.”

  
“Aren't you even gonna say congratulations?”

  
Rick shakes his head, slowly, then hears her insulted little gasp and looks up again, in horror: “Oh no, Haley honey, that's not what I—listen, it's a shock, is all. I just thought...didn't we use protection, usually? I mean, I know I was your first, and I didn't want to ever _do_ this to you, 'specially not after what happened with Lori, over Carl; what might've happened, she hadn't made it here, to have her little girl.” She's staring at him now, mouth twisted and tears in her eyes, as he finishes up, lamely: “You're just...so young, I mean. To be a mother.”

  
“Old _enough,_ though, for a while, there. Wasn't I? Back when you and him...” Now it's her turn to look away, sniffing, as she swipes at her cheek, colour mounting. “You were on the outs, that's what people say now, and I didn't know enough to know better. Remember that time you came back from the prison, when you lied to the Gov in front've everybody, said you hadn't found that _friend_ of yours? Your family? I think it was then. You got pretty drunk that night—me, too. So much so, I don't recall taking precautions.”

  
“Oh, God.”

  
“He gives us what we ask for, not what we want, sometimes. That's what my Daddy would've said.” And here she reaches out, gently, to take his hand in hers; Rick feels her strong little fingers thread through his, warm and slightly damp, amost soft as Lori's used to be, except for where her bow's grip's left calluses. “Look, Rick, I don't blame you—there's no blame. I don't expect you _do_ anything. Just needed to tell you, before I write 'Grimes' in as a last name on the certificate.”

  
“Haley, you can't do that. Not yet, anyways. And definitely don't tell the Governor.”

  
“Why not? Think he's not gonna know? Hell, everyone'll know! I've only ever _been_ with you, said it yourself—”

  
“I know, I know, I'm sorry, I just...give me some time, okay? To bring it up to him.”

  
“He'll be happy—for me _and_ for you, equally. Why would you think he wouldn't be?” Rick takes a moment, just long enough to think _hope you never have find out,_ but there she goes, charging on ahead. “That man saved my life, Rick: wasn't for him, I'd've died trapped in a house with my Daddy's dead body, too upset to stop crying long enough to put an arrow through my brother's eye. Saved you too, by not letting you ride into Atlanta—that's what you always said. So what's changed?”

  
“Nothing, obviously. You're right. I'm just...it's me, not him, not—”

  
“—not me?”

  
“'Course not, Haley. I'm...actin' like an asshole, and I really am sorry.”

  
“Don't be—I understand, Rick, don't think I don't. It just is what it is, though; out of our hands and always was, right from the very start. And neither of us can do anything about that.”

  
She gets up, then, her sleek brown head barely level with his throat, and Rick feels a weird little gut-stab at the sight: half remembered arousal but half...paternal, too, like she's Carl or something, shadow of her own child-to-be laid on top and blocking her out the same way it's thrown her whole future into shade, into doubt. Like she's Shane's daughter Judith, so tiny in his arms, in that last minute before he handed her back over and set off for Woodbury again to turn himself in. To swap himself for their freedom from Philip's literally crazy jealousy.

  
It knocks the wind out of him to realize it, all of a sudden; makes him swing 'round and sit down with a “huff!” pretty much right where she used to be, all the lies he's told on that man's behalf washing over him like a wave, high enough to drown in. And all of it just making him so, so...damn...tired.

  
“I'm sorry too,” Haley tells him, still standing, all young and upright and strong. “For what happened with your friend, that Shane. I liked your boy Carl, when me and Rowan were looking after him—liked Lori too, the little I saw've her. They could've stayed here, and y'all could've been together again; Governor would've liked that, I think, even if it broke the two of you up, 'cause at least it'd've made you happy. But he didn't make Shane do what he did, Rick, any more than you did.”

  
“No,” Rick forces himself to agree, dully. “I know.”

  
“He's a good man. Best man I know, aside from you.”

  
“...thank you.”

  
***

  
Then she's gone, though not without printing a brief kiss on his bent forehead, lips cool against his fevered brow. Leaving Rick to stare at his feet, numbly, recalling the last time he was in this position—back at the feed store, the post-attack meet with Philip, when he first understood exactly how impossible a position he'd put everybody in, and puked in the sawdust between his own heels. And thinking, as he does—

  
 _—well, yeah, he might_ say _he was happy for us, 'cause he always has liked Haley...but then it'd start to work on him, deep down, where even he barely notices it happening. Mount up on him, by slow degrees: the terrible unfairness of it all, me having not just one kid still alive, one_ wife _still alive, but a pregnant girlfriend and another child on the way. I mean, he can take Lori and Carl existing, obviously, so long as they're out there somewhere—be magnanimous about them, comforting, probe my wounds for the pleasure of soothing me after, like my loss is some sort of sex-aid. Yet can I trust that to go on, once her belly gets big and she's laying a claim to me in public again? When the kid's born, and she's tellin' it to call me Daddy?_

  
He'll have Meghan Chambler, though, by that time—hell, Lilly too, if he wants her; trusts Rick to be a one-man man, but he can't think Philip'll set quite the same sort of standards for himself, if there's something else on offer. So that'll make them even, at least for a little while...but the problem is, Philip doesn't want that, not really. What he wants is his whole cake and eat it too with everybody else standin' 'round applauding, telling him how great he is for managing to do his job even when he's so eternally goddamn _hungry._

  
'Cause: _I want it all, yeah,_ he remember Philip telling him once, when they were arguing over some gradation of policy or other; _that's right, guilty as goddamn charged. And you_ don't? _Stop lyin' to yourself, Richard, it's untoward. You need to get with the program, reconcile yourself to what's going on, and if you can't, well...maybe you better just kill me in_ my _sleep, 'cause I'm not gonna stop, ever. I'm gambling you won't, though. That you care more about what we've built together, what'll crumble and die if we turn on each other, than you do about yourself._

 _  
Oh yes, right. 'Cause I'm the_ hero _here, comparatively._

_  
Exactly, Richard, exactly. That's why you're my compass. Just think about how much worse I'd be, if I'd never met you._

  
Both complimentary _and_ threatening, for the win; anxiety fast-ball delivered hard and low, with a pure stomach-punch chaser. Classic Philip Blake.

  
Rick levers himself up and goes searching 'till he finds that one last bottle he knows is stashed in here somewhere—in the closet, turns out, tucked down inside one of his old cowboy boots—and pours himself a stiff one, knocks it down, goes to pour himself another...

...then stops, thinking better of it. Makes himself go into the bathroom, sticks a finger down his throat, and sicks the rest back up.

  
And: _Yeah, brother,_ a voice in the back of his head tells him, _that's the way—don't get to get off_ that _easy, not with the mess you've made. Still, you know how to fix it, don't you? More flies with honey, like the old phrase goes...you give him what he wants, he gives you what you want; that's how it works, supposedly. Or you'd be with us, 'stead'a with him._

  
 _Who...?_

  
_Aw, c'mon now, Rick. Don't act like you forgot me that fast, just 'cause you're playin' someone else's bitch, these days._

  
Shane, that's who it is—well, not really, he knows that; he's not outright insane, any more than Philip is. But sort of...a trace of him, an echo, same way Rick can run Philip in his head without him having to be in the room at all, and still be sure he's right about how things would go if he was. Shane, over there in the corner, a queasy, blurry presence with its head shaved like he's on a damn chain gang, way his Mama always predicted he'd end up; Shane, hanging over Rick's shoulder to whisper in his one ear even when the Governor's murmuring in the other, keeping a running commentary. Like: _Oh yeah, this here's the Reverend Walsh preachin' to you now, boy! Listen up and_ absorb.

  
 _Absorb what, you dumb-ass? Got a town to run and problems to solve, here—stuff with consequences, kind you couldn't even've dreamed of. Old stories and dating advice just ain't gonna cut it, from where I'm standing._

  
_Ooh, lah di dah: take a look at Rick Grimes, big man with a tin star, not that it means a thing, these days! Too damn important to listen to his_ real _friends anymore, now he's gone an' got himself hog-tied by the guy who used to stack copy-paper and run for other people's Starbucks..._

  
 _Man, shut the hell up—what do you know about it? You ain't even here._

  
_That's right._ A beat, then: _So why're you talkin' to me again, exactly?_

  
(Why indeed.)

  
Rick stands there vibrating a moment, hand on his hip, filled top-to-tail with fear; feels himself starting to thumb the catch again, and wonders who he thinks he's gonna aim that Colt of his at if he draws it, aside from himself. Then flings both arms away instead, making fists, and lets 'em tighten 'till his nails score his own palms—but that doesn't help either, goddamnit, not at all. Nothing does.

  
 _Oh God,_ he thinks, mind circling desperately. _Don't let me go crazy, not now, not ever—let_ one _of us stay sane, at least. There's far too much 'round here depends on me and Philip, for that._

  
When Shane got pissed off, he'd get drunk and punch people; when Lori got pissed off, she'd hoard grudges, give Rick the silent treatment, then lay into him for not being willing to talk it out. When Rick _allows_ himself to get pissed off, he chokes out morons and waves his gun at people more than he should, yells ultimatums, then takes things to heart and broods about 'em, sure it's secretly all his fault. But when Philip Blake gets pissed off, he's just as apt to laugh and let it slide as he is to cut a man's hand off and throw it over the fence, then kick him after it—depends on the day, the impetus, extraneous circumstances. The subject-matter.

  
 _Oh yeah, know him like a book, don't ya? Well, they do say the way to a man's heart is through his tallywhacker...but you can't fuck crazy sane, Rick, told you that near a hundred damn times already. I mean, look at you and Lori._

  
_Lori, right. And who's fuckin'_ her _right now, remind me?_

  
And oh Christ, he can almost hear Shane's laugh out loud now, that crude, insinuating chuckle, dumb hick act cranked to eleven. Joking back, with an “aw, shucks” swipe of the hand over the stubbly back of his skull: _Hey, well, c'mon; don't be mean. Ain't like I ever said you couldn't have a good time tryin'._

  
 _Don't know why I ever listened to you, in the first place—your advice always sucks, 'specially now you're a figment of my imagination. Kind of amazes me I gave you credence of any kind._

  
_Yeah, me either. But that'd be 'cause I was your brother, Rick...how you liked to think about me, anyhow. 'Cause you were weak enough to want one._

  
That last part, though—it's like Shane and Philip spilling over, blending into each other, the contrast stark enough to finally jolt Rick free. Make him catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the dresser, hair wet and eyes wild, and think: _Holy Christ, what is WRONG with me?_

  
“We're done here,” he tells himself out loud, firmly, like it's an order, not caring if anybody who might be eavesdropping thinks he's losing what's left of his mind or not. Then splashes a handful of water on his face and leaves again, locking the door behind him...

...before he actually _does._


	5. Chapter 5

Rick pauses to drop his key off at the housing office, then turns for Philip's residence, where he lets himself in quietly only to find him already sat up at the kitchen table, deep into explaining the rules of chess to Meghan—who's nodding away with her thumb in her mouth and hugging a pink stuffed lamb, a look on her face like she thinks there's gonna be a test later on—while Lilly Chambler watches, folded up into the barcalounger like a tired-eyed cat. Leaning back against the door, Rick folds his arms, hidden by the entrance-”hall”'s half-wall, and studies her from afar: older than Tara by about ten years, give or take, but they share those same fine bones and that dark, slightly fly-away hair; Tara keeps hers in little pig-tails, while Lilly pins hers back. Probably has to do with nursing standards and practices, to keep it out of other people's wounds.

  
“Now, this here's the king, honey,” Philip says, holding it up. “He's the guy you want to get hold of. Capture him, you win the whole game.”

  
“So he's the most important?”

  
“Definitely. Interesting thing is, though, he's also one of the weakest pieces...moves just like a pawn, one of those soldiers, remember? One single square at a time.”

  
“Why would they make it like that?”

  
“Hmmm, good question. Could be to keep things fair, or to make the game more exciting. To make you have to _think._ ”

  
At this, the girl's puzzled little face falls, making her suddenly look like a worried forty-year-old. Saying, sadly: “Oh, then...maybe I shouldn't play, after all. I'm not very smart.”

  
“Aw, I bet that's not true. Who told you that?”

  
“...my Daddy.”

  
Philip glances over at Lilly, brow hiking. “Well, I don't want to say bad things about a person's daddy, 'specially if I haven't met him—but that's kind of a silly thing to say. I mean, we all start out knowin' less than everybody else, don't we? Part of being a kid. But the good part is, kids grow up.”

  
“They learn better,” Lilly agrees. “Remember how I went back to school, to work in the E.R.? I couldn't've done it before, but after...so just try, baby, that's all. You don't have to get it right first thing.”

  
“No?”

  
“Nope,” Philip assures her. “We don't even have to play 'till either of us wins. Just for...five minutes, say, or five moves. Just 'till somebody takes a piece.”

  
Meghan thinks for a minute, longer than she probably has to. Then says, at last: “All right.”

  
“Great! I'll set up.”

  
As he starts to, Rick moves out where they can all see him, knocking on the wall to announce his presence. “Hey, y'all—just thought I'd sit in, if that's okay with you, Meghan.” Nodding at the Governor: “Philip.”

  
“Richard. This _is_ a surprise.”

  
“Yeah, well...that other thing fell through, as it turns out, so I decided I'd come after all. Since I'd been invited.”

  
Philip cocks his head a bit at that, opening his mouth to comment, but: “Good to have you here, Officer Grimes,” Lilly puts in on top, uncoiling a bit, before he can. “Come sit here with me, will you? Don't think we've ever been formally introduced, as yet.”

  
“No ma'am, we haven't.”

  
“Call me Lilly, please—and you, you're Rick, right?” He nods, taking a seat. “Of course, I've heard so much about you already, from my sister; be inclined to think she had a bit of a crush, I didn't know better. But then again, she's like that: sudden enthusiasms, followed by equally sudden drop-off.”

  
Rick nods. “I could see that. Hope I'm not disappointing her too much, given; this's all...pretty new to me, tell you the truth.”

  
“Oh, I get it. Still, it's kind of antiquated, that sort of notion, from where we're standing now: old rules, for an old world. Like...dead people staying dead, or not having to carry a gun all the time, in case somebody wants what you got in your truck.” As Rick smiles, despite himself: “ _There_ you go. Take my advice, and don't let her think she can get away with running that tired old 'bisexuality, is that even a thing?' routine on you; probably comes from being the only gay kid she knew for so damn long, but it doesn't do her any favours.” She pauses, laying a hand on Rick's wrist, and the smile she gives him along with it is genuinely lovely. “Don't be put off, though, either. Tara's just starved for heroes, you know? Been that way all her life.”

  
“Like Meghan, then, a little bit.”

  
“No, not at all—my Dad wasn't hers, by a long shot. Or Philip's, from what he's told me.”

  
“So I've heard, and I'm glad for that. Sorry for you, though, being married to somebody who'd...”

  
“...tell his own daughter she was stupid, damn near every day of her life?” She sighs. “Well, half of that's my fault, right? And for a while there, I really couldn't figure out what to blame him for more—that, or going out one night to get Quick-Pick tickets and a pack of smokes, then never coming back. Still, at least he wasn't around to get us killed, when _this_ all happened.”

  
Over at the table, Meghan makes a tentative play for Philip's castle, which he “forgets” to block; takes one of her pawns instead, opening himself up for her next move, and when she works herself up to go for it, he makes a big show of being shocked but delighted. Lilly and Rick join in, clapping and cheering, while Meghan blushes to her ear-tips, smiling shyly.

  
“He _is_ good with her,” Lilly says, approvingly. “Knew he would be.”

  
“Yeah,” Rick says. “Um...how?”

  
“Well...”

  
And here she shoots him another little look, sidelong and narrow, less flirty than coolly assessing—and for a split second, he's a bit taken aback to realize how much she reminds him of Michonne, in that one moment: practical to the point of potential ruthlessness, yet not without sympathy, buried deep though it might be.

  
“...I heard about his daughter, of course,” she admits, at last. “What happened. How he lost her, and—tried to keep her. Actually got up the courage to ask him about it, and he was very kind, kinder than he had to be...but when he told me the details, all I could sit there thinking about was how I might've done the same, had I been put in a similar position. You know?”

  
“I do. I thought it too. My son, Carl...” Rick trails away. “Think any parent'd feel the same, really. Most've 'em, anyhow.”

  
“Said you talked him into doing the right thing, though, eventually—made a point of telling me that, along with all the rest. Which was how I figured out you obviously mean a lot to him.”

  
Rick shrugs, uncomfortably. “I don't know about that.”

  
Now it's Lilly turn to raise a brow. “Don't you?” she asks.

 _Good question,_ Rick thinks, in return.

  
***

  
They watch Philip and Meghan play the game almost all the way through, before he catches her yawning and offers to pick it up later. And after she and Lilly have made their goodbyes, Rick and Philip are left alone once more, eyeing each other warily.

“How is she at chess, anyhow?” Rick inquires, finally, to which Philip replies: “Not terrible, all things considered. I was pleasantly surprised.”

  
“I believe you.”

  
“Well, hm. Thanks for that.”

  
Rick takes a look at the chessboard, remembering their own initial games, so long ago: Philip black, him white, almost exclusively. Like the concept of switching off was a mystery neither of them had quite begun to fathom. How Philip would contemplate Rick's moves and tut over them, more charmed than disappointed, especially when Rick insisted on trying to save pawns rather than sacrifice them. As ever, it now occurs to Rick he should've been paying more attention back then, asking himself what sort of person would find that kind of overt display of conventional morality so amusing—but hell, that boat has sailed, long since. Sailed and sunk for good measure, same's the goddamn _Titanic._

  
 _Ever get to the point where you could beat your old man?_ he recalls asking him, once, but the Governor just shook his head, smiling wry. Saying, after a moment: _Got to where I could refuse to play, so I did; that alone was pretty damn satisfying, in itself. More than good enough for me to build the rest of my life on._

  
 _Beat you all the time, huh?_

  
_Oh, hell yeah, Richard—'course he did, that son of a bitch. But then again...he beat me at everything, really. Lit_ and _fig._

  
Which explains a lot, probably...but there's nothing to be done about it, not at this late date. So—

  
“You comin' to bed, or what?” Rick asks, abruptly, and gets to savour the momentary pleasure of seeing the Governor knocked at least slightly off his guard. “Not still annoyed with me, I take it?” he inquires, at last, to which Rick just shrugs once more, uncomfortable still, but willing himself to relax; turns for the bedroom, opens the door and strolls in, slow enough so Philip's all but forced to watch his ass move as he does so. Then starts stripping off, giving him time to trail in after: toes his boots free, unbuttoning his shirt. Keeps his eyes on Philip's, coolly level, 'till he lets his gun-belt fall free, movement alone enough to make the bigger man shiver with automatic anticipation.

  
Mouth apparently gone dry, Philip clears his throat, a small growl. Manages, at last: “Looks like you're somewhat hot for it.”

  
“No more so than usual.”

  
“Don't often go in for the slow peel, though, is what I'm sayin'—a bit uncharacteristic in that respect, I had to venture an opinion. What's the special occasion?"

  
“Just thinking how I've been...selfish, is all,” Rick returns, carefully, unbuttoning his fly. “You're good for Meghan, I can see that now—she might even be good for you too, in the long run. That's something to celebrate, right?”

  
“...right.”

  
A few more shed items of clothing sees him safe under the sheets, where it doesn't take long at all for Philip to join him; they come together abruptly, almost violently, with a clash of teeth and Philip's fingers dug deep in Rick's hair, pulling him closer than he might otherwise be entirely comfortable with. Hot breath, tongues and spit, sharing each other's tastes 'till the Governor pulls back a moment, demanding: “You been drinkin', Richard?”

  
“Little bit.”

  
“That's naughty.”

  
“I know it is. Broke my own rules—that's no good, not if we're gonna keep on trustin' each other the way we need to. Which means...” And here he lets himself hesitate, like the idea only just now occurred to him. “Maybe I should pay a forfeit, or something.”

  
“Keep talkin'.”

  
Rick lets himself play it through, eyes wandering, positively downcast; Jesus, he must look like some sort of porn clip come to life, some blushing goddamn virgin, for all that Philip does seem to be buying it. Was it always this easy to steer men around by their dicks, or are the two of them special cases?

“Was just wonderin'...” he says, slowly. “Had _been_ wondering, for some time now...if, uh, you wanted to—you know. Like usual, 'cept with me, instead've...you.” Adding, defensive, as Philip double-takes at him once more: “Turnabout IS fair play, that's all I'm thinkin'.”

  
“Oh, and you're all about the fair play, aren't you, Officer Friendly?"

  
Rick feels his face heat, for real. “Well, if you don't  _want_ to, after all—”

  
Quick: “Didn't say _that._ ”

  
“Okay, then.”

  
And there it is: the gauntlet, thrown down. Rick stares him right in the face, as if daring him to pull back, not that Philip looks even vaguely that way inclined; sure isn't morally conflicted below the belt, from what Rick can feel. But then again, neither is Rick, anticipated pain aside. Without him wanting it to, his mind goes automatically flipping back through all their previous sodomitical encounters, heading straight towards the very start: how he wouldn't've taken “no” for an answer that night, not under any circumstances, even if Philip had tried to refuse him. How his own hurt made him inflexible, even cruel, in a way that's set the tone ever since.

  
Past time to take a shot of his own medicine, he guesses, grimly. But Philip must see his shoulders squaring, however unconsciously, 'cause he shakes his head in turn, gentler than expected; puts out a hand, spreads it wide and warm over Rick's breast-bone, an oddly comforting motion. Saying, as he does—

  
“Don't worry yourself, Richard...I've done this before, more'n once. Which means _I_ at least know what it takes to make things good the first time, unlike some people I could mention.”

  
Rick lets out a shaky breath, one he hasn't quite known he was holding. “That's...nice of you.”

  
“Huh, well. Don't feel like you have to make your mind up just yet, on that one.”

  
He goes slow after that, stretching out the preliminaries 'till Rick almost wants to scream: kissing, stroking, enough lube used to birth a damn calf, fingers hooked up inside and feeling 'round for something he eventually finds, teases and torments, plays with like it's a worry-bead as Rick struggles to hold position, knees and inner thighs wobbly with pleasurable strain. Then a press, a burn, bearing down until he's seated completely, the whole process deforming time like some awful dream: Rick expects it to hurt and damn if it doesn't, but that changes the longer it goes on, by slow increments—from sudden tear to dull ache, stretched full and mildly itchy to sort of...less awful, then nice, surprisingly so. Then good, better, oh Good Christ god damn! without the pain ever entirely going away, always present: a sting, a spice, a chaser.

Bent over and panting with his mouth hung open, Philip's jaws closing on the sweaty back of his neck as though to bite but just pulling at the flesh a moment, abrading it between his strong, crooked teeth before lapping and letting go, one blood-hot lick whose unlooked-for shock sends a bolt down Rick's spine, all his damage set to buzzing. Then hugging him from behind, sealing them both fast together 'till Rick can feel not only the Governor's fierce pulse coming through his back but how his own heart seems to stutter and skip in turn, run itself near-ragged to match it...

  
And: _Oh God,_ he thinks, helpless, _I'm gonna die right here in this bed, screwed to death, and that'll be a damn end to it all. Middle-aged, we're both middle-aged men—give ourselves a heart attack, we keep on this way...shit, laughing, why's he laughing? I say that out LOUD, or what?_

Maybe, probably. 'Cause here's Philip huffing back now against his eardrum, voice gone light with sheer lack of air, thin with fast-approaching climax—

“Heart's a, ah!...surprisingly durable organ, Rick. You'd be surprised, oh—Christ, Jesus fucking _fuck!_ What it can, what it...can take, ugh, urrrgggh...”

  
Pontificating to the last; that's how he'll die himself, one day. But there's nothing left in Rick's own lungs to counter with, not even to hiss _shut the fuck up!_ one more time, before it's too late: he's going, going, gone with a bang, a flash. A literal whiteness behind the eyes, as if he's been damn well struck blind.

  
When Rick comes to he finds they've flipped over somehow, hips canted so his right leg's slung up over Philip's hip, heel dug hard into the small of his back; Philip's staring down at him, eye slit and grinning ferociously, watching him shake while the last of his come jerks out of him with a juddering groan, wrenched up from somewhere embarrassingly deep inside. Pointing out, with typical self-satisfaction: “You did that to _me,_ that first time—quite something, huh? You're welcome.”

  
Teeth gritted: “You, _you_...just...”

  
“Yeah, yeah, I know; shhh, Richard, shhh. We don't ever have to do it like this again, you don't want to, though I sure do appreciate the gesture. That was...amazing, to put it mildly.”

  
“Hnnnn,” is pretty much all Rick can manage in turn, by way of a reply. So he lets himself lay there a while instead, bodily functions dimming back down towards something like borderline normal, 'till it finally starts to seem as though it might no longer hurt too much to breathe, or think, or speak.

  
“Hope that didn't hurt as much as it looked,” Philip tells him, a few minutes later, whole tone implying the opposite, to which Rick snorts, demanding: “You want it to've?”

  
“Wouldn't mind a little payback, maybe, considering how many times we've gone at this the other way 'round.”

  
“Well, then...you got it. Happy now?”

  
And: “Yes, I am,” the Governor says, pulling carefully free, like he's trying to cause as little further harm to Rick as possible, given what-all's already gone on. Then levers himself down beside and closes his eye, grin fading but still apparent, insufferably proud of himself as the proverbial cat that got the cream.

  
***

  
In the morning, Rick wakes up confused: Man, did that even happen? But only for a second, because the minute he starts to move, he knows damn well that it did.

  
Lays there a minute more, then, listening to the Governor snore, amazed by his own duplicitousness: holy shit, this really is going to work, isn't it? 'Cause when it all comes down to brass tacks, it's like Shane used say, back in the Academy: just have to switch off the part of you cares if you live or die yourself, and do what has to be done—not the good thing nor the bad thing, but the only thing. The thing guaranteed to keep everyone else safe.

  
Philip Blake would never sacrifice himself for the greater good, not unless he thought he was dying anyways and wanted to go out like Jesus Christ Superstar, while he was still alive enough to enjoy it. Probably think it was adorable Rick wanted to try to, though.

  
 _All I've got left is you,_ Rick thinks, face twisting, rubbing one hand quick 'cross his pre-shave stubble like some vain attempt to groom himself clean, _and that's my look-out, entirely...my choice. I put myself here. Got no one to blame for it_ but _you, and me._

  
Feels Philip stir, then, shifting in his sleep; watches him turn over, reach for Rick, drawing him close. And hears himself say, at almost the same time—catch in his voice making the words blend together just a bit, echoing, like they're coming from underwater—

  
“Haley's pregnant, by the way.”

  
A pause, then: “What?”

  
“Exact same thing I just said, Philip; mine, the way you'd assume. She thought you should know, and this seemed as good a time as any to tell you, now you're all happy with yourself over finally gettin' to stick me like I did you, these past few weeks. So...there it is.”

  
He's half-propped up against the Governor's side by now, looking down on him, watching his chest rise and fall like he's counting seconds, trying to get himself calm enough to speak: has his eye screwed shut against the light, patch still firmly in place, even after last night's exertions. And for a breath there, maybe less than, Rick has a sudden flash of being thrown off, pinned up against the wall with Philip's arm at his throat, a knee between his legs—thinks about reaching up, slipping his thumb underneath, digging into the mixture of scar tissue and ill-healed wound filling that hidden socket 'till Philip screams, 'till he's forced to let him drop. Where his belt fell during that strip-tease, too, not to mention how fast Rick could possibly manage to get to it, before things got _really_ ugly.

  
None of this turns out to be necessary, however. Because all Philip actually does is give himself one single sharp shake, crack his eye open and turn Rick's way, asking—

  
“All right, then: you told me. What now?”

  
“Basically? You leave 'em alone. She doesn't want anything from me, or so she says—gonna do it all herself, just wants permission to call the kid Baby Boy Grimes, or what-have-you, and me...I've _got_ a family, right? A wife. A son.” Philip nods, slowly. “That's the deal, then; something new, on top of all the rest. I help you with Meghan and Lilly, play my part like always, and you let Haley and her child be, forever. Acceptable?”

  
“Sounds so, yeah.”

  
“I can trust you on that?”

  
“Thought you trusted me already, Richard. I mean, last night...what was that, if not trust?” A beat. “Collateral?”

  
And: _What else, for fuck's sake?_ Rick wants to snap back, but doesn't. As ever.

  
“I'm willing if you are,” he says, instead, holding the Governor's gaze, not looking away 'till Philip bends his head in a nod, however grudging. Then Rick presses him down in turn with both hands before clambering right back on top, no matter what pain the process might bring, to re-assume his _proper_ place in this arrangement of theirs.


	6. Chapter 6

Here time begins to compact, moving ever-forward while blurring together, in linked clumps: pitch to decision, action to carry-through, with all of it multitasked for maximum impact, if not necessarily total efficiency. Always some on-your-feet improvisation, when you're talking about swaying the crowd. But then, that's always been the way it's worked, from the very beginning—Philip Blake and Rick Grimes, Governor and might-as-well-be, each standing in for the other as it becomes necessary, roped in a double-harness.

  
A week into Meghan's painstaking re-education, they're playing chess themselves when Rick asks Philip if he actually meant all that stuff he was talking about in the med center, about the future, same night Shane brought Lori in. And: “Sure I did,” Philip says, putting Rick's king in check. “Population caps, scarcity of resources, etcetera...been thinkin' about it for a while, off and on, but the army camp, the prison, all that just brought it to a head. Why?”

  
Rick moves his queen to block, taking Philip's bishop, staying carefully out of range. “Time to start putting all that into place, then, isn't it?”

  
Philip nods and thinks a moment, tapping his top lip, studying Rick's face as if he's looking for clues, like: _is this real? Are you manipulating me, somehow? Do I care?_

  
(Not if it's something I already want to do, I don't.)

  
So: “Past time, really,” he agrees, at last. Which is how he comes to be standing up at the next general meeting, Rick by his side, talking the plan they've spent so many nights working on through, as the cream of Woodbury's crop—Lilly and Tara Chambler amongst them, along with Martinez, Shumpert, Alisha, the Dolgens and Carters alike—all turn mildly worried faces their way, wondering what's the big idea. And once upon a time, it would've been Rick's job to soothe them, crinkle his eyes a bit and give 'em the thumbs-up, like: _we'll get through this, folks, don't panic._ But he doesn't do that anymore—leaves it up to the Governor instead, so Philip'll be forced to keep his eyes on the prize and a running talley of exactly what lie he told when to who, at least in theory. Instead, Rick has taken on a whole new role entirely, that of co-conspirator, enforcer: Philip's very own personal beast on a leash, equally favored as feared. Officer (Un)Friendly.

  
He can see Mitch Dolgen studying him sidelong, right now, for example—broken nose splintless at last but still bruised a lovely shade of yellow-brown, like some decaying banana. Wondering if he can sneak up on Rick sometime and trade him back tit for tat, probably, before flinching mentally, remembering how the last go-'round played out; muscle-memory shame-encoded yet and quick to chime in, remind him how it felt getting beat down and having his pride took in public, while Pete begged leniency. Can hear Philip's voice in his head at the same time, too, telling him how Mitch's a dog, easy to train, to break to the lash—but not Rick, oh no, not really. And isn't that just the best thing _ever._

  
'Cause Rick's just as dangerous as Philip is himself and always was, when you get down to it, under those silly good intentions of his—a wolf, and wolves have to stick together, after all. It's their nature.

  
“Five-year plan, that's the basic idea,” the Governor tells them, usual rumble gone momentarily breathy and intimate, like he's proposing to everybody in the room at once. “We're doing all right now, better than ever, and I know we all mean to keep it that way...but hard times are comin', folks, I can't lie to you about that. We got things workin' against us, simple entropy. This is a finite world we live in, so it behooves us to move beyond fortification and stockpiling. We gotta take control.”

  
Rick nods. “As head of survey, for example, I can tell you that while we've been assuming the red zone's always gonna act as a buffer, holding people off as well as more biters, that's actually just not so. The first- and second-generation crops of dead are aging out even as we speak, falling apart; they don't have the numbers to keep most large groups of looters out, anymore, or hide Woodbury from patrols sent out by competing communities. That's why we're gonna need not only a best defense, goin' forward, but a best _offence,_ too.”

  
Tara puts her hand up, prompting a nod from Philip: _go on ahead, sister-in-law to be._ “Uh...what do you mean by 'competing communities,' Rick, exactly?”

  
“Well, I'm tryin' to be pretty clear: organized groups of people, outside've our own, competing for the same stuff we need—food, fuel, bullets, drugs. We want to hold onto our necessaries, we're gonna have to cut anybody like that out of the equation.”

  
“How?”

  
He takes a breath, eyes sliding to Philip, who's standing there with one hip cocked and an interested look on his face, like he can't wait to see how Rick chooses to handle this one. Remembering when he first brought the subject up, and saw a bunch of conflicted emotions flicker behind the Governor's mask, just for a second, before remarking, coolly: _Yeah, you know you want it, just don't wanna_ say _you do. Not out loud, anyways._  


  
 _Frankly? no. People'll respond...badly, to the idea._

  
_Not all of 'em._ Adding, as Philip still hesitated: _So fine, let_ me _say it, instead. You like object lessons, right? I'm perfect for that, these days. “Look what happened with Shane Walsh, over at the prison. Look what happened to Rick, when he wanted to trust an old friend.”_

  
 _Hmm, and look what did._ A pause. _You're really gettin' the hang of this, aren't you?_

  
Rick shrugged, feigning nonchalance. _Learned from the best._

  
 _Yes. You surely did._

  
Back in the here and now, meanwhile, Tara's still waiting on her answer, so Rick gives it. “Well,” he says, slowly, “I'm thinkin' it'd go like this, basically—we find 'em, map 'em, watch 'em a while. Figure out if they look like they're gonna impinge on us, if they constitute a clear and present danger. And then, if they do...make sure they don't.”

  
Lilly this time, simply calling out, no hands involved. “Sorry to be blunt, but again, _how_? Negotiation? Diplomacy? Grenade launcher?”

  
“Any means necessary,” Rick replies, without a second's pause. “That satisfy you, Miss Chambler?”

  
“I'm not quite sure, to tell you the honest truth.”

  
“Nor should you be,” Philip puts in, his own hands going up, in mock surrender. “These here're uncharted waters, and the rule-book's not yet been written. So if you think Officer Grimes is bein' a tad hasty in his rush to judgement without trial, you'll maybe have to excuse him; he's a lawman, after all. Just wants to keep us safe.”

  
To which some people murmur, but far more nod—a good sampling, up until the older guard get involved. Because everyone wants to trust their elders to know better, to have the moral high ground. That's why Philip keeps them around in the first place, considering how relatively useless they are otherwise.

  
So: “'This world is us, now, and the dead,'” old Mrs Sullivan from the library says, looking straight at Rick with her fine-lined face screwed up, like she's having trouble recognizing him. “'We win by pulling together, not by pullin' apart'—that's what you always used to say, Officer Grimes, isn't it? What changed?”

“I did say that, ma'am, yes. That's true. And it works pretty well as a creed to steer by, so long's you assume everybody out there shares the same value systems you do—but what if they don't? That's the lesson I learned with my good friend Shane, when he let weaponized zombies into Woodbury and killed thirteen people because he somehow got the idea I wanted to steal his baby girl out from under her mother, _my_ wife.” It's easy to let his very real pain seep into the next sentence, stripping the words raw, 'til they reek like a badly-cleaned wound. “Now all's I got is ribs that hurt when it rains and the knowledge my trust in him almost cost us everything we've worked for, while he's out there somewhere with the baby, her and our son too, my boy Carl—twelve years old, last time I saw him—plus as many weapons as he could steal from our armory on his way out.”

  
Philip nods, taking up the slack. “Used to be a sheriff's deputy, same as Rick, 'till between the Atlanta firebombing and the prison, something must've gone horribly wrong...but then, this world will do that to you, if you let it. We all know it's true, don't we? And that's 'cause we've all done the very worst things, every last one of us, just to survive; lost our innocence, or had it stolen from us. Run in fear, hid like animals, killed like beasts—'till we found each other, that is, and this place. 'Till we made it ours.”

  
“Can't get complacent, is what we're sayin',” Rick warns them. “We've had a good run, but the world is changin', to the point where cold drinks and a damn fine library ain't gonna cut it much longer.”

  
“These ain't make-work projects, either,” Philip adds. “We really do need 'em done, so I'm counting on all of you to pitch in, 'cause what I know about long-term planing'll fit in the palm of my hand. Does help to know what fine people I got to work with, though...” Big smile. “Now, first up is true sustainability, so we can wean ourselves off supply-runs and stay close to home as possible, just in case. Who wants to take a crack at that?”

  
***

  
Think-tanks and committees, everybody with a job to do—that's Woodbury's way, and the hell of it is, it _does_ work. Especially in terms of misdirection.

  
Shumpert and Martinez drift up to Rick in the aftermath, following along with him as Philip presses the flesh through the crowd up front—nearby but not next to, within eyeshot rather than earshot, so long's they keep it quiet. “So that's the play, huh?” Shumpert asks, thoughtfully. “Wonder how all these good folks'd react, they ever found out it was really  _you_ brought in all them biters, not that other dude?”

  
“Not well, I'd bet,” Rick agrees, without much ire. “Pretty much the same way they'd react to findin' out it was you brought down the gate with your bazooka, I guess...or you and Caesar both helped me get thirteen Woodbury citzens we all of us knew and liked killed, in general, while tryin' to make sure Philip didn't turn this place into a goddamn zombie gladiator Disneyland.”

  
“Hey, I didn't like _all_ those people. Fuqua, for example—he was a dumb old bastard, and racist, to boot. Ain't nobody misses him.”

  
“Point taken. And?”

  
Shumpert opens his mouth, but shuts it again when Martinez shakes his head at him. And: “Look,” he says to Rick, carefully, “Cleve and me, we're just...aw, listen, man: it's hard for you where you are right now, I get it. But—we were kinda hopin' to move on from the whole killin' people and takin' their shit part of things, y'know? Except it seems like that ain't gonna go away anytime soon, no matter what-all you're puttin' in his ear, 'cause _Philip_ just likes it so much.”

  
“Well, like you say. Killing _evil_ people and taking their shit, though, that's the modification we've agreed on. I think it's a step up.”

  
“'Evil,' huh? And who's the one gets to make _that_ call?”

  
“Me.”

  
Shumpert snorts. “That's what _you_ think, man. Believe it when we see it out there, in the field, stead'a in...bed, or wherever y'all work this stuff out. 'Cause I was married too, once, an' that almost _never_ works.”

  
Rick feels himself stop short, then, mid-step; feels his spine stiffen, the set of his jaw shift as he turns to look them both full-on—and there must be _something_ in his face, something truly off-putting, to make the two of them flinch back just a tad like that. Hears himself mimic, savagely, between grit teeth: “'Oh Rick, Governor gets these _bad ideas,_ gotta talk to him, he'd listen to _you_ '...remember, Caesar? Well, either I'm trustworthy to do that or I'm not, and one way or the other, I don't see anybody else linin' up for the privilege. So which is it, exactly?”

  
Shumpert looks away, shaking his head, but Martinez meets Rick's eyes, unwavering. Asks him, softly: “Man, what the hell happened? You ever listen to yourself, these days? It's like you're turnin' into him.”

  
“No it isn't. I mean, just think it through—what you think the Governor would _do,_ you said that sort of shit right to his face? Not debate it, oh no; not get angry, either. Just smile and smile, sell you some happy bullcrap, get you good and lulled then send you out on a run and lock the gate on you, convict you in absentia, tell the sentries to frag your asses minute you got back. Or go out after you himself, and make you just...disappear. Give you heroes' funerals, put your names on the wall.” He pauses. “I wouldn't do any of that, and before you think to say it, I wouldn't help _him_ do it, either—quite the opposite. 'Cause my job right now, fellas, is to stand between you and him, him and everybody else. Keep him distracted, keep him—”

  
“—happy?”

  
“That's right.” A beat. “You tellin' me he doesn't _look_ happy?”

  
In response, both men consider the man in question, who's on the verge of finishing up with Elberta McKnight, head of the Mothers' Association—flat-faced blonde woman, coordinates Woodbury daycare and cloth diaper services, runs the toy-bank. As though homing in on their attention, meanwhile, the Governor's own head cocks back their way, remaining eye observing them sidelong, keen yet genial. Gives them both a bit of a salute, mouth widening further—showing teeth—and projecting, as he does: _hey Caesar, Cleveland! Something you want to discuss? My door's always open, if so. Ask Rick, he'll make sure and bring you by..._

  
Smiling and waving, one hand held high with the other braced on his knife-hilt, long fingers light-clasped 'round the grip. And flicking a glance Rick's way at the same time, scanning him for any sort of signal as to whether or not these “friends” of theirs pose any sort of threat he should know about; Shumpert catches it right away, Rick can already tell. Then nudges Martinez in the back, making sure he sees it too.

  
“...I really can't tell,” Martinez says, eventually, voice maybe a shade or two paler than normal, for all he makes sure not to let it shake. “But hell, if you say so, Rick—yeah, that's more'n good enough for me. For both of us. Right, Cleve?”

  
“Right,” Shumpert chimes in, all but taking Martinez's arm, and yanking.

  
***

  
The first year goes perfectly, or almost so. Close enough to plan it has Rick sort of spooked, in retrospect—what pitfalls might the future still hold, things he just hasn't had enough time to brainstorm contingency plans for? But then again, that's what the rest of the coucil's for, supposedly.

  
Sustainability starts with wells and an irrigation system, farming, livestock—pigs and chickens, more horses yet, which means more riding drills for Rick and his calvary backboners (all females with walls full of gymkhana ribbons, who knew?) to supervise. They clear lots and re-plant corn stolen from dead farmers' fields to raise for ethanol, on the assumption they're going to eventually start using that a fuel in the vehicles they really do still need for long trips, and start creating storehouses full of “bug-out packs” designed for a swift exit or a long siege, in case Woodbury gets overrun by the dead or the living: preserves, jerky, dried fruit, boiled water.

  
By six months in, Rick's agreed to swap Haley future babysitting hours for her tutoring Meghan at bow-hunting now, while she's still able to. Around the same time, Philip and Lilly start sleeping together for real, instead of simply flirting 'round it while Rick watches, or doesn't. Rick knows this because Lilly comes straight to him the first time it happens, bent on confession. “Don't want to step on your toes,” she tells him. “I respect what you two have going—Philip too, he hasn't already told you that. It's just...”

  
“...he doesn't understand how playin' Daddy with your daughter doesn't actually _have_ to necessitate sleepin' with you? Yeah, don't worry, Lilly—I got it, it's fine. You two can do what you want, with my blessing; I've got surveys to run.”

  
“Looking for 'competition'?” Rick doesn't answer, just waits. “Listen, I have to ask: why do you micromanage him so much? Something I should know about?” Still no answer. “Do I _want_ to know?”

  
“Depends, I guess.”

  
“On what?”

  
“Whether or not you want to keep on doing what you've already done, and feel safe about it.” Adding, hastily, off her next expression: “Look, he'll never hurt Meghan, not intentionally—you, either. But if you offer him something he wants, he'll take it, and do whatever he thinks he has to in order to keep it...so just don't make him think he has to lie to you, if at all possible. Because he will.”

  
At this, Lilly's shrewd eyes fix on him, narrow slightly. “I thought you loved him,” she says, at last.

  
“I _know_ him, is all,” Rick replies.

  
That night, he comes in to find Philip waiting for him at the kitchen table, hands tented. “You talked to Lilly,” he begins, with preamble. “Or her to you, anyhow.”

  
“I did.”

  
“This doesn't change things, obviously.”

  
Rick shrugs and sits, sliding his legs far enough under the table so their booted feet touch, lightly. And: “'Course not,” he replies. “Were you thinkin' it would?”

  
“I don't know. Maybe.” Here Philip's gaze softens, turning inward, and Rick has time for a moment's giddy fantasy about how comparatively easy it might be to grab something off the stove—that cast-iron skillet he cooked this morning's eggs in, for example—and brain him with it. “I mean, 'selfish' goes both ways; you've given up a lot for me, by any standards. But then again, it's not like I tricked you into it, way I do with everybody else...you _know_ me, better than anyone. Told Lilly as much yourself.”

  
“Well, she did ask. 'Sides which, you got Sarah to like you without lyin', right? And Penny.”

  
“Oh, I worked hard on Sarah, believe you me. As for Penny...she didn't have much've a choice, did she? I was her Daddy.”

  
“That didn't mean much with you, and yours.”

  
“Yeah, well...I knew him longer than she did me. He had a lot more opportunity to disappoint.”

  
“Understandable. But I wouldn't worry 'bout Lilly Chambler comin' in between the two of us, I was you.”

  
“Why not?”

  
“'Cause I'm not gonna let her, ever. Not unless you _want_ her to.”

  
“...how so?”

 

"You know what I'm saying, Philip," Rick replies, and draws him down with a hand 'round the back of his head, straight into a bruising kiss.

 

***

As predicted, Papa Carter has a massive coronary and dies around the same time that Haley's brought to bed, and forty-eight hours later, she's holding her new child at the graveside while Philip reads from _Corinthians_ 13: Baby Boy Grimes, whose real first name is apparently Evan, after Haley's brother, same one she had to re-kill. Rick wonders if Andrea ever had that child of hers, Philip's almost beyond a doubt, and what she named it, if so; seems unlikely he'll find out anytime soon, though he hates to say never. Things do have a way of looping back around and unfolding themselves, after all, even in times like these—or maybe especially in times like these, considering how small the world's become. How full of the same tiny group of people, still alive and kicking desperately, against a constant sea of death.

  
Two widowed Dads in a world gone horribly wrong, helping each other cope, and sharing the love of a (surprisingly, sadly) good woman. It's like some goddamn post-apocalyptic sitcom.

  
Rick stands at Philip's one elbow, Lilly his other, as Tara hugs Meghan to her and strokes her hair. But Meghan, she's not really crying, Rick's interested to note...not looking away, even. Keeps her eyes steady on Philip, drinking his words up like warm milk full of both comfort and strength, and standing taller than he's ever seen her. Got Haley's bow slung on her back, too, disproportionately large for her thin frame, plus a quiver of arrows instead of that stufed pink lamb of yore, hung to the front for easy access; Haley leant it to her for “maternity leave,” to keep practicing with, 'till Alisha and Tara manage to scavenge her one of her own.

  
That poor, unconfident little girl's blooming up like some sort of shared gardening project, and Rick can see the Governor taking note of it, swelling with pride at his own magnaminity, the addictive feedback loop of loving the way _his_ love makes her love him, to the point of worship. Which is a positive development all 'round, really, since even at his most besotted Philip can't possibly believe Rick thinks he's a “good” person anymore, not with everything that's passed...though that's more spice than wound-salt, these days: an added furl, a twist of the fetish. And it does add a kick, Rick has to admit, as Lilly can probably feel herself, when they're all three in bed together—two equal-dangerous creatures performing for her pleasure with each other while she watches, then for theirs, with her.

  
(No chance of yet more half-siblings for Evan, either, thankfully, since Lilly had a hysterectomy 'bout a year after Meghan was born, when a pap smear turned up something hinky. So that's something, at least.)

  
But the sex part of the keep-the-Governor-happy equation isn't everything, sadly, nor the second chance at fatherhood part—can't be. Not when Philip Blake's involved.

  
So—

  
“Think we might've found 'em,” Rick tells him, ushering Philip down into the bowels of what used to be one of Woodbury's only office blocks, where they've set up an “interrogation suite” inside the remains of Milton's original lab—one he moved out of last year, once his experiments started taking up too much room. “Went back to where the tank camp used to be with Alisha, moved out in a spiral, 'till we came across a trail. Followed it, and...well, you'll see.”

  
A spark of interest: “Terminus?”

  
“Nope, those others. The rape-and-kill bunch.”

  
“Ah _ha._ Tell on, Richard.”

  
Martinez and Shumpert are on guard duty at the corridor's end, Martinez giving a sardonic two-finger salute as the Governor goes by. Rick unlatches the cell-door's grate to let Philip take a peek inside, shows him some sloppy dude in camo and leathers tied to a dentist's chair, groaning feverish, his slack face slick with blood and sweat.

  
“Call 'emselves Claimers, according to Dickless McDumbass here,” Rick tells him. “Sorta like a biker gang with no bikes, which is...pathetic in one way, kinda brilliant in another. Lack of vehicles keeps 'em off the radar, and makes it so's they can move in any direction—up, down, sideways. Never hear 'em comin'.”

  
“Guerillas. Interesting.”

  
“Yeah, not so much, in practice. But it at least gives us a plan of attack.”

  
“Mmm, exactly. Stake out what _they're_ staking out, let 'em think they're in like Flynn, then catch 'em in the act...Can't put it that way beforehand, though. Not to everybody involved.”

  
Rick nods, slipping a bit into Governor mode himself just to deal with the conversation, which he's finding appallingly easy to do, these days—easier and easier, increasingly. But he really doesn't want to think too hard about that. And: “Obviously,” he agrees. “Why you think I only put Alisha on this?”

  
It all spun out from a story Pete and Mitch Dolgen told when good and sloshed, after Rick brought some of Philip's remaining whisky by last week, as a long overdue sorry-I-beat-your-ass-down peace offering. How they ran across another group while out on patrol, then bickered and dithered about whether or not to rob them themselves (Philip rolls his eye at this, gives a little huff: _idiots_ ) 'till they swung back by on the next go-'round, only to find someone else had used the intervening time to clear it out in the worst way possible.

  
“So I went looking in the same general area, found a new group all set up nearby—lots of women, lots of kids; fair to middling supplies, but they're almost out of bullets. Had Alisha stake it out a few days, and lo and behold, yesterday she contacts me to tell me how there's stalkers hanging 'round. Grabbed _this_ idiot when he was taking a piss, after we drove a few walkers between him and the camp's perimeter: camp managed to defend themselves and his friends ran off, but they'll be back, and not for him.”

  
“Why not?”

  
“Not those sort'a guys, and better yet, he's been bit—they saw it happen. Probably shoot him next time he shows up, even if he hasn't changed yet.”

  
Philip smiles at him, approvingly. “Rick goddamn Grimes,” he says, like he's tasting the name, excitement rising, shading over into elation. “You are...the single best investment I have  _ever_ made, before or after.”

  
 _Starting to sound just like him,_ Martinez's voice repeats, in Rick's memory—and it must be true, 'cause he can see the Governor thinking the exact same thing, pretty much. Like it disturbs him to a degree, but only the same degree to which it arouses him. Like he's perfectly fine with that particular give-and-take, so long as it remains evenly balanced.

  
“Use the victims as bait,” Philip continues, trying the idea on for size, out loud. “Wait 'till they attack, then go in guerilla-style as well, act like we were hunting, stumbled into the middle of it by accident. And some'll get killed in the melee, but that's acceptable, 'cause the survivors'll think we're a gift from God—they'll love us for saving them, cheer while we do justice on these bastards.”

  
“Population cap's not due 'til the end of the year, as I recall,” Rick replies. “So we get new stock, unflinchingly loyal; two birds. It's a win-win.”

  
And that's how it happens, in a nut-shell. Two days later, Philip's got the Claimers' leader Joe pinned to the ground after he drove his knife up under the man's collarbone then threw him down and stamped on the hilt to drive it in further, half of the blade meat-snagged, the rest buried in dirt. Had to pull the asshole off a girl barely Meghan's age to do it, so nobody's exactly crying over his pain. Rick leans in to look him in the eye, sighting down his Colt and thinking how he finally feels like a cop again, if only for this one moment.

  
“Anything to say, or should we just pass sentence?” he asks, and Joe spits at him, weakly. Barely manages a “Fuck you, pig” before Rick pulls the trigger, plugging him through the chest in order to watch him bleed out, because scum like this doesn't deserve anything clean as a headshot.  


  
They hang the rest of the Claimers from the same stand of trees with signs 'round their necks: RAPIST, THIEF, MURDERER. Then leave them there to snap 'till they rot apart as one of the Governor's famous object lessons, and head for home.

  
Only three dead before the Woodbury party intervened, which Rick guesses is as good as he could hope for, and only one of those—father of the girl they “rescued” from Joe, along with her perpetually-crying little sister—an able-bodied male: victory, or something like it. He makes sure to learn their names so he can add them to the list, the toll he'll eventually have to pay, then lies there that night staring up at the ceiling in the dark with Lilly hugging one arm and Philip's long legs thrown across his own, holding him down. Thinks about how guilt would've given him nightmares not so long ago, but when he finally does drop off to sleep, he probably won't dream of anything at all: not what happened today, not what might happen tomorrow, or the day after. Not of Lori, or Carl, or Shane.

  
It'll be like he's back in the coma, like the whole last four years was some kind of nightmare in itself. Like after the bullets went through him at that roadblock and he blacked out in Shane's arms, his own blood wetting his pants like piss, he simply faded from existence and never woke again, at all.

  
But the sun comes up on Woodbury at the same time it always does, nevertheless. And Rick Grimes wakes to the sound of Philip Blake and Lilly Chambler laughing together, the smell of coffee and eggs frying, to know he's right back in hell where he belongs.


	7. Chapter 7

Three months into the new year, at the first breath of spring, Rick rides out looking for Terminus on his own, without even Alisha to keep him company. He feels bad about having separated her from Tara Chambler for so long while he was setting up the raid on the Claimers, so that's part of it, but he also frankly wants to get out of the all-too-pleasurable rut he, Lilly and the Governor have fallen into all winter—away from Philip's apartment, its king-sized bed still slightly too small to hold all of them comfortably without a whole lot of sweaty overlap, same way the bathroom isn't quite sized to fit two adult males trying to shave at the same time unless one of 'em's doing it blind, in the shower. Which is why Rick eventually started to grow his beard out instead, much to Philip's annoyance.

  
“You look like a damn hobo,” he complained, earlier this week, “and it hurts my face, too.” Though Rick can't help but notice how that doesn't stop him trying to groom himself on it like a big cat nevertheless, almost any chance he gets, not to mention how he sure does seem to like the way it feels when applied to various other parts of his anatomy.

  
So: “People trust men in positions of authority more when they're not clean-shaven,” Rick told him, shrugging. “I read that right 'fore I got shot, in _Psychology Today._ ” And heard Lilly give a barely-audible snicker in the background as Philip paused to think that one over, frowning slightly, as if he somewhat suspected he might be being made fun of.

  
“Still don't like it,” he said, finally. But: “My beard, my choice,” was Rick's only reply, pushing him back onto the bed. And soon enough, as Rick licked his leisurely way down towards the Governor's belt-buckle, it really didn't seem like he cared to argue the point any further.

  
So: here he goes, leaving Lilly to watch over Philip, for however long it takes. Helps that Meghan's due to take her final handgun certification sometime in the next few days, which will provide a certain amount of distraction—she'll be able to stand guard while Philip does his golf thing, or even back up a couple of adults on legitimate gate duty. Because she's quite the little biter-killer, these days, as Philip once said of Carl, back when: got her first re-kill when a pending breach that hadn't quite gotten repaired in time broke open one Sunday, letting in a clutch of stragglers that made their way halfway up main street before anybody spotted them.

  
No one badly hurt, thankfully, but while most of the other kids fresh out of church ran, Meghan turned and fought instead—planted herself right at the Governor's hip with bow up and an arrow already nocked, covering him as he lunged to put his knife through the closest one's eye, and had already head-shot the next one over his shoulder before he had time to straighten up. Then grinned when he turned to look at her, smile stretching all the wider once he grinned back.

  
“That girl's a caution,” he'd told Rick, proudly, later on. “Gonna be beating 'em back when we're long in the ground, that one. I'd only leant on Penny the way I lean on her...”

  
But here his store of elation had run out, abruptly. Lilly took his hand and he let her, but his eye stayed squarely on Rick until Rick finally nodded, however slightly. Then asked, in return—

  
“What would she think of you now, though, Penny? If she was still...here?”

  
Philip had thought for a moment at that, then squared his shoulders like he was facing some sort of mental firing squad, composing himself for a heroic martyr's death. Like he was trying to figure out which way the hidden cameras lay, and orientate himself accordingly.

  
“Be scared of me, probably,” he admitted, at last, “and she'd be right to be—but if I'd been like this from the beginning then she'd be alive _,_ at the very least, and you and I both know that's true. Don't we, Richard?”

  
“Probably, yeah,” Rick agreed. Then added, as Philip kept on looking at him: “Okay, yes. We do.”

  
“Well, then.”

  
( _Means I was right, doesn't it? After all._ )

  
And: _Of course you were,_ Rick'd thought, not even particularly upset by the idea. Like always.

  
Later still, when Philip was finally asleep, he and Lilly held a hushed conversation at the kitchen table, bent so far into each other he could hear her breath echo like blood in a seashell, as she whispered: “Don't know how long it's gonna take, and you think he's under pressure already—why not just stay? You can shepherd him a lot better than I can, after all; he's used to you.” But Rick simply shook his head.

  
“Listen, he's gonna be kept busy enough by phase two, long's you don't let him brood, and make him keep to the schedule—Martinez knows what the Governor's like, so keep him on board, and Shumpert: they're both trustworthy, to a point. The really important thing is to make sure he knows I'm preparing him a report on Terminus, that there'll be a campaign coming he can look forward to. Remember how he was after the Claimers, way that spiced things up? This'll be twice as big, so it'll last longer.”

  
She looked down, shuddered. “What happened there...Tara told me some things, and I didn't like it. But you're right, Philip was just so—cheerful, afterwards, and that's..."

  
“...kinda distressing too, yeah, I understand. But it's a cycle, Lilly, I can tell you that from experience: he goes up and down, gets restless, starts picking at things. Like nothing's good enough, even the stuff he put in place himself. We got to turn him outwards, or Woodbury gets the brunt of it.”  


  
“Bi-polar?”  


  
“I don't know, maybe. Never seen him with medication, though I guess the drinking might've been a way to keep himself even, back when I still let him—but hell, it's hard to tell. We've all got our something, right? PTSD. Coping tactics.”  


  
“Uh huh: coaching Meghan, for Philip; pretending she's Alisha, for Tara; this—thing—with you and Philip, for me. Yours seems to be managing him, from what I've seen.”  


  
“Yeah, well—his _used_ to be gettin' hammered in front of a tank full of severed zombie heads, back 'fore I started in to work on him, so count your blessings. And as for me...” Rick paused a second or so, here, before concluding: “...hell, it's not like I have a whole lot else.”

  
To which Lilly gave him that same shrewd look, the one which first made him think this arrangement of theirs could work for more than the Governor's pleasure—diagnostic, assessing him for hurts with no single hint of blame, objective as any other medical professional. Then leaned in across the table to bestow a kiss meant just for him, sweet and sad, so reminiscent of Lori it made Rick want to cry.

  
“I'll see things get done, I promise,” she told him, as behind them Philip turned over with a groan, but slept on. “Whatever you need, Rick. I trust you, same as he does.”

  
Still: not _quite_ the same, Rick can only hope, since he wants to trust her in return, far more than he ever can the man in question. But you take whatever's on offer in such situations, mainly 'cause there's not a lot of other options—that's a time-tested Governorism he's definitely become willing to pick up and run with, by now.

  
“Keep a bridle on him, but don't let him feel it—that's my main advice,” he told her, in the end, before kissing her back, with much the same sentiment. Then rose, winding one arm under hers to bring her up with him like they were waltzing, and escorted her back to bed.

  
***

 _  
_Philip didn't like the idea, when Rick first broached it. “Too damn far to travel, 'specially on horseback, and with no back-up? No. You're my right hand, Richard; I can't spare you like that, not and risk losin' you.” But after Rick explained what he had in mind he perked up, way he always does, whenever something particularly clever gets sprung on him unexpectedly.

  
“Pets, huh: jawless, armless, docile and harmless...camouflage 'gainst the biters, plus a place to hang your extra survey equipment, too. Yeah, I like it,” he said, admiringly. “But will an arrangement like that cover _both_ your smells, you and the horse?”

  
“Don't see why not, I just use enough—a cordon or a coffle, not just the two.”

  
“Horse might get spooked, you have it walking 'round in a crowd of half-rotten dead folks.”

  
“That's why I've been trainin' him with ones I caught down the back fence, for about a month now. He'll do okay, we go at a steady clip.”

  
“Huh, that's smart. Sneaky, too.” Then put in, a touch sly, as Rick inclined his head to accept the praise: “Think about Miss Michonne a lot, do ya?”

  
“Not all too often, no, but she obviously did come to mind, the minute I started planning this out. Why?”

  
“Oh, no reason. Milton was fascinated by that tactic of hers too, at the time; damn clever woman in her way, samurai gunslinger stuff set aside, and a lot more educated than she looked. Remember those legal terms she used to use, here and there—'recuse,' and such? I actually think she might've made the bar, back when.”

  
“Yeah, well, maybe you should've gotten to know her better, and found out for sure.”

  
“Aw, she hated me from the start, you know that—and worse still later on, when me and her friend Andrea started gettin' intimate.” A pause. “Still, she did like you, more than anybody else she met, that I could see. You might've kept her in line, things hadn't...”

  
...gone like they did, Rick guesses he meant to say, for all the world as though the way it did end up going was completely out of his hands, allowing him to now stand here shaking his head in completely innocent sorrow. Because this is something he's come to recognize about the Governor, to his cost: he really only likes to take responsibility when things go right. Cold drinks and hot showers? Totally me, y'all. Everything else? Not my fault.

 _  
_Which is another reason Rick needs some away time, amongst many. And another reason he just smiled and shrugged, replying: “So...tomorrow, 'bout eight AM—that good for you? Probably take a week, week and a half, tops. And I'll take the CB with me, turn it on every day at the same time, so you know I'm okay.”

  
“What's that top out at, again?”

  
“It doesn't. So long as we shoot skip—skywave, bounce it off the ionosphere—it can go thousands of miles, halfway 'round the world. I just need the big antenna.” The Governor nodded. “Don't come lookin' for me unless I miss three days, though.”

  
“Two. At the most.”

  
“Three, Philip. Anything could happen—you don't know what you'd be walkin' into.”

  
“Exactly, and you either. So be careful, godamnit.” And: _I'm never not, in most ways, compared to you,_ Rick thought. _Though...not where you're_ concerned _, usually._

  
Both those things being true, then and still; it's a puzzle, to say the least. One Rick has no real hope of ever solving.

  
***

  
So here he is now, almost seventy miles away from Woodbury and riding the same horse he almost took into Atlanta down a series of back-roads that, more and more, look like they're going to lead somewhere close to Macon. Impossible to follow the train-tracks exactly this way, but he's doing all right, and he doesn't really want to come close enough to Terminus—wherever that turns out to be—to ping their radar, anyhow. Because the idea of having people come up the tracks, as Philip's already observed, is both a smart and a telling one, in context: they act like a channel, a ready-made trail, a slaughterhouse chute.

 _  
_Every morning he sets up the CB, attaches the antenna and tunes it to Woodbury's agreed-upon frequency. Back when he, the Governor, Morgan and Milton were first brainstorming a set of long-range survey protocols, it was (naturally enough) the Governor who pointed out that they could never really know who might be listening; better to use the frequency itself as a sort of base signal, adding on Morse code by flipping the switch on and off if absolutely necessary. What becomes clear as Rick gets within range, however, is that Terminus itself is broadcasting—not on CB, but classic radio, which the CB occasionally gets a backwash from. Some woman's voice repeating the same eerie phrases over and over, recognizable from the flyers Shane's group found: _Sanctuary for all, community for all. Those who arrive survive._

  
Chills Rick's blood a bit to realize how quick he would've been to flock to that call, once upon a time. But he's been keeping close company with the king of liars ever since he almost served himself up on a platter to Atlanta's hungry hordes, and as a result, sweet nothings don't tend to sound so sweet to him, anymore. He'll believe it when he sees it.

  
The thing itself, however, proves to be...so much worse than he could ever have imagined. He stakes it out for four whole days, circling the abandoned railroad yard temination complex for as long as he can stand and mapping it from the outside, at least as well as possible while trying desperately not to poke his head up far enough to be spotted by snipers or scouts. By the end, he's watched three separate groups of pilgrims get dealt with, and thinks he's familiar enough with the overall routine to break it down: welcome them in with plates of fresh-cooked mystery meat and drugged water, then fleece them while they're out and dump them into boxcars marked “A” or “B”, locked from the outside.

  
Those who suspect something and resist are made equally quick work of, herded down a series of blind alleys by shooters on the roofs, and end up in exactly the same position nonetheless. Faint cries for help emanate from boxcars and terminal interiors alike; there's that big pile of stuff in at least one corner of the yard, a slurry of bones, meat and blood in another—could be human or not, no way to tell at this distance, but Rick isn't taking any chances. There also look to be chained-up figures staggering around in that part of the compound...is someone keeping their loved ones close, like Philip did? Feeding them half their guests, and eating the rest themselves?

  
No kids, either, or none Rick's been able to spot. Which also doesn't bode well.

(Another area's set up like some sort of creepy church, maybe a memorial wall like they have back in Woodbury, without quite so much grue attached. Candles on candles and strange crap written on the walls, readable only in quick snatches: We first, always. Never trust. Never again. Something happened here, and it's sunk into the ground like toxic waste, contaminating everything. Like the inside of Philip's head on a really bad day, but with far less of an attempt at interior decoration.)

  
One way or the other, he's gonna love making sure this place gets finally closed for business, Rick thinks. These folks are worse than the Claimers, by a factor of maybe 500; deserve whatever brand of hell the Governor ends up bringing down on 'em, tank and all.

  
It's always a bad idea to travel at night, but by sunset on Day Four, Rick feels like his hair's been standing on end all week—he's exhausted enough from this constant cocktail of disgust and rage to fall asleep right there if he doesn't watch out, and wake up on his way to becoming spare ribs. So he makes it back to his horse without incident, finding it still calmly chewing hay, surrounded by the mini-pod of dazed-looking, jawless corpses who've kept it “invisible” all this time. He walks the group back out to the road, hackles raising with every twig-snap and moan, then swings himself back up in the saddle and takes his firewood hatchet to their escort's heads, slipping the chains free as each zombie slumps. This allows him to spur the horse to a far faster clip than before, rattling off down the highway with every intention of making it back to Woodbury twice as fast as he estimated he'd be able to, on the way up.

  
They do okay, more than. So well that thirty miles later, when Rick suddenly spots the turn-off for Cynthiana, he lets himself rein up and pause a moment long than he probably needs to. Thinks about how, unlike Philip, he doesn't even have a photo of his former family to remind him what he threw away in the Governor's service; remembers that picture somebody snapped of him, Lori and Carl in better days, down at that cafe they used to frequent, smiling over pizza. Be easy enough to go get it, surely...

  
But the town's nothing like he remembers it, streets strung with razor-wire and set with weird traps like giant pincushions, a thousand sharp points on which biters have lodged, stuck and snarling. One grabs hold of his horse's tail as they try to negotiate past, causing it to scream and shy, impaling itself on the same trap; Rick barely manages to keep himself from being thrown but falls instead, landing so badly he thinks he's busted a leg for a minute there before he manages to right himself, scramble up on all fours and stagger free. And the horse is still keening like a fire alarm, chunks being torn off it left, right and center, while the first damn thing he sees as he hobbles towards a nearby car is three or five more corpses feeling their way around the nearest street-corner, arms outstretched and grasping for him, with maybe another fifty coming in from behind.

 _  
_Such a stupid fucking way to die, this would be, after all the shit he's lived through already. Torn apart on the main street of his own home town, just 'cause he was too damn dumb to keep his nostalgia in his figurative pants.

  
Well, Christ: ye will know not the hour nor the day, that's what those late-night TV preachers always said. But if these decaying sacks of crap really want him, he's gonna damn well make them work for it.

 _  
_Cursing himself and the universe both, Rick Grimes snatches up his pack and saddlebags, and makes as much of a run for it as he can manage. Puts his machete in the skull of the first biter gets near him, then loses hold of it by the fifth and switches back to the hatchet. Makes it up onto the bumper of a flatbed truck, then perches on the cab's roof and looks around wildly, trying to figure out if it's too far to jump to that fire escape halfway up an adjoining drugstore's wall; yeah, probably. By now there's a choke of biters on the flatbed itself, and Rick flips one of his chains over the nearest one's head like a lasso, curbs it against the cab's nearest corner and pulls 'til the jaw breaks, knocking out as many of its teeth as he can. Then hauls it up further, braces his boot on the thing's chest and hacks off first one arm at the elbow, then the other...

 _  
One's not gonna be even half enough, though, not when they've already seen me,_ he thinks, dimly—then jumps, almost losing his already-slippery footing, when a double shot rings the air, causing the two biters grabbing for Mr Camouflage's flailing legs to both suddenly develop a bad case of exploding head syndrome. Then sees the one behind them take a crossbow bolt to the eye, and hears some all-too-familiar redneck asshole's voice say, more approving than amazed—

  
“Well, I'll be a monkey's fuckin' uncle: Rick Grimes, Officer Friendly himself. You a long damn way from Woodbury, hoss; didn't know the Governor let you out for walks anymore, let alone cross-country.”

  
Rick swallows, drily. “Daryl Dixon?” he asks, as though it could really be anybody else, to which the man in question just nods.

  
“In the flesh, motherfucker. Yo, Michonne, get your ass up here, girl—y'all gotta see this!”

  
A second later, an equally—wonderfully—recognizable, regally locked head pops up, cheeks blood-splattered, her katana's blade already shearing through the last of Rick's pursuers. Michonne vaults up onto the flatbed, looking almost exactly as he last saw her 'sides from the fact she's wearing a different shirt, along with an expression that's actually more grin than snarl. And: “Hey,” she greets him, flicking her sword clean. “Been tryin' to make yourself a pet? I ought to sue your ass for copyright infringement."

  
Rick glances around, head still reeling, and probably really would fall this time, she didn't put out a strong, deft hand to help him. But she does and he takes it, knitting his fingers with hers; lets her pull him down, huffing as his ankle turns beneath him. “You two're a sight for sore eyes,” he tells her, and watches her soften further, if only for a moment.

  
“You too,” she says, at last. And hugs him, quickly, hard enough to make his ribs protest—something he never would've seen coming, let alone expected. But people do change, 'specially these days, and sometimes even for the better...

...he himself is more than adequate proof of that, after all. Isn't he? _  
_

(Well, maybe not for the _better_ , in that respect.)


	8. Chapter 8

The headshots turn out to have come courtesy of Morgan Jones, who Rick also hasn't seen since they dropped him off near Woodbury that last time, and Andrea, who Morgan appears to have taken under his wing as an apprentice sniper. She's as pretty as ever, and her son—Dale, that's his name—is almost three now, a long-limbed, sturdy boy with her hair and Philip's slightly slanted blue eyes who regards the action from his seat in the corner with enough possessive jealousy to make Rick's ears burn, 'specially when his Mama has the gall to hug this strange, limping man tight right in front of him.

  
“Oh, man!” she exclaims. “When we saw your horse go down, thought you were dead for sure, no matter how fast Daryl and Michonne got there—but you're one tough bastard, aren't you, Rick? Always seemed to be, anyhow.”

  
“Yeah, I do my best,” Rick replies, hugging her back after a moment while glancing over at Morgan, who just grins. And: “No!” Dale orders, with great force, but Michonne just swings him up out of that high-chair they've made for him and balances him on her hip, sticking some sort of biscuit in his mouth. “Keep quiet, tyrant,” is all she says, and chewing mainly keeps him busy enough after that that he does, though not without his fair share of resentful staring.

  
“Named him after a guy you never got to meet,” Andrea tells Rick, putting a plate of food together for him, “somebody who died back at Hershel Greene's farm. You'd've gotten on. I treated him worse than I should've, so...” she shrugs. “This seemed as good a way to go as any, in terms of apology.”

  
“Sure, I get it—you honor people any way you can, right? I mean, Haley...” But here he trails off, as Andrea's eyebrow hikes; not his story to tell, really, considering how careful he's been not to bond with her boy, her Evan. “Anyhow,” he concludes, uselessly.

  
So they sit down, and Morgan takes a look at Rick's leg, pronouncing it strained, not sprained: “Should be fine by tomorrow, you want to get goin'.” To which Rick nods, still looking around, taking in the place as a series of grabs: maps all over the walls, hand-drawn, updated probably daily. Weapons-caches next to every well-shaded window, oil-lamps on the table, a kerosene grill in the kitchen; they must've already trained Dale not to mistake guns and bullets for toys, though there aren't a whole lot of those, either. Two mattresses and a plus-sized crib, as well as a couple of chairs for watch-duty.

  
“Cozy,” Rick comments, and Morgan laughs, shortly. “Yeah,” he says, “we keep it pretty tight, though this ain't our only place—move around depending on the weather, or how big the herds are gettin'. Spend a good part of the week scavenging, then clearing, burning bodies, setting the traps up again. We're day to day, here. Survivin'.”

  
“Not so different from Woodbury, then.”

  
“Guess not, except for the population. And the political process.”

  
As Rick goes through his bags, discovering the CB broke on that last vault of his, Daryl looks back out the window, and swears: “Man, it's geek central out there.” Which means no point in trying to get to the cafe, or down to his old sheriff's station to see if there's a radio he can use that'll let him do check-in tomorrow—they'll just have to hole up a bit earlier than usual, sit around in the dark getting caught up, just like that first night out at the prison. “Remember?” Morgan asks, and Rick just nods—all he can manage, with the memory of it rising up in his throat, constricting it.

  
“So, uh...Lori,” he does bring himself to ask, eventually; “Carl, Shane, the others. They still alive, at least?”

  
“Last we saw, yeah.”

  
“But not here.”

  
“Not for a while. Almost—two years, that right?” Michonne nods. “Headed out of town with the Greenes and Glenn, said they'd try for Alexandria. Andrea tried to get 'em to leave Carl and Judith behind 'til they knew better where they were going, but Lori wouldn't have it.”

  
Rick nods, “Can't blame 'em for that, I guess. Still, things look pretty good here, biters notwithstanding. Why would Shane—?”

  
Morgan shrugs, uncomfortably; Michonne and Andrea exchange a pointed look. But it's Daryl who eventually answers, replying: “Look, man, I know he's your friend and all, but Shane, he can be kind've a dick even if you _ain't_ tryin' to jack his shit. You remember that about him, right?”

  
“...I do, yeah."

  
Michonne snorts. “Hell, Daryl, don't lie; that wasn't it, and you know it. Fact is—”

  
Here Morgan jumps in, though, cutting her off. “Fact _is,_ ” he says, “we had a difference of opinion. Couple of 'em, really. Could've probably worked it through, he'd just been amenable, but—well, he wasn't. In the end, Shane opted to leave, and they went with him. Made his own bed.”

  
Yeah, sure: just like everybody else, but me in particular, Rick thinks, but doesn't say. And catches Michonne still studying him out of the corner of her eye, like she's thinking the exact same thing.

  
***

  
Morgan takes first watch, so Andrea and Dale can get as much sleep as possible, and Rick stays up with him. “You 'n' her seem like you're gettin' on,” Rick says, and Morgan smiles a bit at that, a little sheepishly. “Gettin' there, maybe,” he says. “It's early days, yet; I mean, she's got her hands full, like you saw. Dale's a sweet kid overall, but he's got some very specific ideas 'bout what's his and what ain't, you know? Ain't too quick to let go, even when he's in a good mood.”

  
And: “Oh, I know the drill,” Rick replies, without thinking. “Just like...”

  
( _...his Daddy._ )

  
Now he's gone too far, though, and he knows it—snaps his mouth shut, breaks off mid-word. 'Cause Philip is nobody to that little boy, can't ever be, for them to stay anything like safe; sure, he's enjoying playing house with Lilly and Meghan, but the very idea that there might be a legitimate heir to the Blake name out there somewhere...no, it wouldn't do, at all. But Rick isn't about tell him, and thankfully, Morgan already seems to know that without him having to explain.

  
“Well, what the Gov don't know won't hurt Dale, or Andrea,” he says, finally, “so keep it that way, all right? Be a hell of a lot easier to make sure he grows up normal, or as much so as possible, given.”

  
“Deal,” Rick agrees, then pauses, before offering: “What I started to say before, about Haley...”

  
“Oh man, _seriously_ —you got her pregnant?” Rick nods. “Boy or girl?”

  
“Boy. She named him Evan.”

  
“Evan Grimes, huh?” Morgan gives a huff, amused, but not amazed. “You dog. Well okay, enlighten me: how'd the Governor take the news, exactly?”

  
“Surprisingly okay, as it happens. He's got his own arrangements, these days, so long's I don't rub his face in it, we're all good.”

  
“So you 'n' him, you're not still—?”

  
“Oh no, no, we are. I mean, Governor doesn't give stuff up just 'cause he gets hold of more, Morgan—that's just crazy-talk. That'd be ridiculous.” Adding, hastily, as Morgan shakes his head in sympathy: “But hey now, I'm all right, not suffering too much, beyond the obvious. I do my share; Woodbury's flourishing, as much because of him as 'cause of me. We work well together...better than if we're apart, anyways. And Christ knows, there's worse people in this world than Philip Blake, believe it or not. Been watchin' some of 'em for most've the week.”

  
From the other mattress, Michonne's voice issues, quiet but clear: “About that...Daryl and me found this weird zombie lynching, not all too too long back: signs 'round their necks, real frontier justice shit. You and _Philip_ have anything to do with that, Sheriff?”

  
Rick wonders how long she's been awake, lying there listening while he and Morgan chatted on. But all he says is: “That was us, yeah, and good riddance. Those people were trash.”

  
“Looked like, given the charges. So—this's your hobby now, finding folks to pass judgement on? Must make him feel pretty good, I'd think; righteousness can be quite the kick. Better than a tank full of heads, any day.”

  
“Beats the alternative.”

  
At this, Michonne sits up, jostling Daryl, who turns away—folds up into a tighter ball, cursing under his breath, pillow pulled over his ears. Continuing, low and level, like she's arguing in court: “Maybe, but that's a damn dangerous idea to be playin' 'round with. And don't tell me you don't see it, Rick—you're a smart guy, smarter than _this,_ by far. 'Cause he's an addict at heart, that Governor of yours, and if you give him something to get high off, he's always gonna want more.”

  
Uncomfortable: “Aw, c'mon, Michonne. Think you're maybe bein' more'n just a little—”

  
“What, _unfair?_ No, what I'm being is practical, plain and simple; you need to think this through, if you haven't already. 'Cause he is _not_ the ruin of a good guy, much as you might want to think different—I'll bet you anything Philip Blake was a hollow shell with good imitation skills and zero sense of personal morality long before things went to shit. This is the office sociopath, the guy who cheats and steals whenever he thinks he can get away with it, tells lies 'til he believes them, and always blames other people for his own misery. Told Andrea he was an abused kid, always came second—how everything would've been fine if his wife hadn't died, or his boss hadn't been an asshole. He tell you that too?” She doesn't wait for Rick to nod. “Yeah, I'll bet. I've prosecuted plenty of people like that, and they don't ever change. He's an emotional vampire, kind of guy lies about his wife being a lesbian so he can get full custody. And he knows he's got a good thing in you, so he's not about to let you go; long's you stay, you legitimize him. Your loyalty proves he's the same kind of leader people automatically know _you_ are. Just ask yourself this: what in the hell did the Governor ever do for you, you couldn't've done for yourself?”

  
And: _want me to draw you a picture?_ a voice whispers back, from deep inside Rick's brain, almost making him snort; beside him, Morgan gets a stricken, “don't answer that!” sort of look on his face, while Daryl is overcome with a sudden coughing fit that almost sounds natural, you don't listen all too closely. Michonne pauses a moment, mouth twitching.

  
“Yeah, okay,” she says, finally. “But how about the rest of Woodbury, ones whose ashes he _isn't_ rakin' nightly? They must know you over-rule him sometimes, at the very least, so how come they can't see the Emperor's naked?”

  
“'Cause they don't want to,” Rick answers, promptly. “'Cause he's _better_ than you remember, overall, and maybe that's down to that little gal he treats like a daughter, or her Mama, or even to me, but...man's a damn freak of nature, a human tidal wave. Gets their blood up like nobody else, always knows the right thing to say, and when he puts his mind to something, it gets _done._ Which we need—always have, always will.” He pauses, thinks, then concludes: “People _love_ him.”

  
“They love you too, though. Heard him say it himself, enough times.”

  
“Not the same way.” Now it's her turn to shake her head, locks shifting. “Look, you're just gonna have to trust me on this one—if I _could_ mount a coup, don't you think I'd've done it by now? Eighty-five people in Woodbury, and I owe it to 'em to keep 'em safe: from this world, from the biters. And that's a hell of a lot easier to do with Philip on my side than it's ever be without him.”

  
“Man, you don't even hear yourself, do you? Son of a bitch really _must_ be good in bed, is all I can think.”

  
Rick hisses, temper mounting. “Not too bad, no—want me to feel bad about admittin' it? 'Cause plain truth is, I just don't; good and over _that_ part, thank you. But I still see him for what he is, believe you me. Got my eyes wide open. We're usin' each _other,_ here, and when I look around at what we've built, I feel—proud, is all. Like it's worth it, no matter what the cost.”

  
Daryl's looking over his shoulder at them both now, squinting hard with the fingers of one hand light-spread atop Michonne's knotted fist, poised to squeeze in solidarity, maybe even comfort. But before he can, she lets it relax, sighing. Looks back at Rick with something in her eyes that might be sadness, or sympathy, or...some frustrated urge to slap him 'cross the face, knock a bit of sense into him, for all Rick knows. Almost makes him wish he could help, if he doesn't suspect he'd end up with still more bruises.

  
“Sounds like love to me,” she says, at last. “Toxic, dumb-ass...but love, nevetheless.”

  
This time, Rick really does snort. Then takes a moment, before admitting—

  
“Well...I don't _hate_ him.”

  
(Not anymore.)

  
***

  
In the morning, Michonne and Daryl escort Rick first to the cafe, where he manages to retrieve the photo and she scores a psychedelic cat statue she thinks Dale'll enjoy playing with, then across to the station so he can make check-in, and keep Woodbury from trying to triangulate his position. “That should do it,” Rick tells 'em, and Daryl nods, handing him the machete he lost the day before.

  
“You should stay,” he says, gruffly. “Know you won't, but...”

  
“It's just not a possibility, Daryl. Not if I want to keep y'all safe.”

  
“Man, I get it, just don't have to like it. Shit, I was _born_ with Merle on _my_ back; no choice in the matter, so I grinned and bore it. But you...all's you did was go the wrong way, tryin' to get into Atlanta. Guess what I still don't understand why you ain't just killed him or died tryin' already, like you said you would, back when.”

  
“Not that simple. Never was.”

  
“Yeah, you keep on sayin' that.” To Michonne: “Be back in a few—gotta get that car from two streets back, one we gassed up last week. You keep your eye on him.”

  
“No problem,” she says, flicking her blade clean, while Rick wonders a moment what they both think he's likely to _do,_ he has to be monitored so closely. But there's no point getting upset over it, he reckons; be gone soon enough, one way or the other.

  
But: “Listen,” she says, “I'm...sorry about last night. Shouldn't've pressed you like that.”

  
“It's okay.”

  
“Yeah, no, it really isn't. I just...” She trails away, before continuing. “When I saw you there in the street and the next thing I knew, we were fightin' off walkers together like nothing ever happened, I thought: this is how it should be. How it should've been from the start, you hadn't decided to throw yourself on the damn tracks or Philip Blake's dick, whichever came first.”

  
“Michonne, you _know_ why I had to go back.”

“Know why you _thought_ you had to, sure, but you were wrong then too, and I'm not gonna make it easy on you. A tank burns a gallon of crude per mile, Rick—how fast could he've really chased you, for Christ's sake?”

  
“Tank also goes seventy miles an hour, so I think you mean how _far,_ not how fast—but hell, he _would_ 've come after me, tank or not, I know that for a damn fact. Which means if I'd stayed with Lori and Carl, with Shane, I'd've ended up getting them killed.”

  
“That's debatable, but...look, I'm not gonna bother. Remember what you told me to tell Carl, how you were dead, and the Governor killed you? Well, I did it, 'cause I promised; Morgan and Daryl just went along with it too, kept their lips shut, bit their tongues. And he _believed_ it, your son—cried for _days._ Lori, she put on a stiff upper lip, but Shane...he went crazy for a bit, wanted to storm back into Woodbury and plant one in the Governor's head, 'till Lori managed to beg him on her damn knees to back down, put them and theirs over the idea of revenge. Eventually he agreed he would, but he was never the same. It killed something in him. That's what drove them on, in the end.” She shoots him a look. “God knows what Carl's growing up like now, Rick, wherever he is—you hurt him so bad, so deep, beyond all hope of healing. It's like you cut that little boy's heart out.”

  
Rick stands there as she speaks, not even bothering to deny it; lets the pain wash over him without protest, high enough to drown in—nothing he can do to turn it away, and it's not like he wants to. He deserves it, after all.

  
“Was always on me, no matter what,” he manages, at last, once the cold in his chest's ebbed down far enough to let him. “No right answer. Didn't matter in the end, what I did, or didn't.”

  
“And there was _never_ any other way? Explain it to me.”

  
There's a moment here, while Rick tries to put it all together in his head. The last time he moved even vaguely towards voicing these thoughts was also with her, but so many things have changed since then—inside him, as well as outside. He needs to move carefully, or it'll all collapse and wash away, leaving both of them equally unsatisfied.

  
“Listen: I understand how the work I do with him...Philip...seems worthless, to you...”

  
“I never said that.”

  
“You never had to, Michonne.” Continuing, as she glances down and away, processing that: “I had an argument with him, fairly recently, like within the last—six months, I think, though it gets sort of hard to recall. Told me I should enjoy myself more, given most've what-all I did was so much for everybody else's benefit rather than my own, and I said maybe I didn't want to—didn't want to let myself. And he said: 'Well, if so, you're doin' kinda a shitty job at that, Richard.' And I thought about it, after, and I realized...he was right. Why shouldn't I get to like what I reap, as well as what I sow? Because Lori and Carl aren't here to do it with me?”

  
“Lori, and Carl, and Shane too. 'Cause they come as a package, these days.”

  
“Well, yeah—these days they do, don't they? And that's the problem.”

  
Closed his eyes for just a second there, only to see the Governor prowling restless back and forth behind 'em, monologizing as he went. Saying: _You think there's somethin' wrong with me, and maybe you're right—hell, I_ know _you are. Always was, from the get-go. And I used to feel bad about it, but now I thank God, 'cause it means I was made for all this. Not too good for office work, but give me the hard choice—life and death, survive or don't—and I'm home. I can make it like that, and never feel bad about it, after._ A quick finger-snap for emphasis, skin ringing on skin, like a silenced shot. _But so can you, you just let yourself; accept it, be who you are not who you wish you were, 'cause that guy? He's dead. Died in the hospital, long before we ever even found each other._

  
Rick remembers shaking his head at that, stubborn-rigid, sniffing hard. Saying: _Thing is, though, I could've_ been _that guy again, if YOU hadn't made me send away the only people who still remembered him. Could've tried, anyhow—_

  
 _But that's where you're wrong, Richard. Was only one of 'em couldn't've stayed, and that was Shane, 'cause eventually I'd've had to kill him for trying to kill me, or_ you _—same way someone else will, no matter where he goes, 'cause he's that kind of man: a dog in the manger, wants what other people have, no matter if he's entitled to it or not. I know the type._

  
(Yeah, I'll just bet you do.)

  
 _Oh, fuck you, Philip! You knew him for all've five damn minutes, goddamnit!_

  
_Only_ had _to know him five minutes, to tell what kind've guy he was. And the truly sad part is, you knew him for...what? Twenty years? But you never would've seen it comin'._

  
Which was only right, damn it all, and Philip Blake along with it: then as now, now as then, now and forever. Shane's his brother still, always will be, like Cain was to Abel. So Rick opens his eyes once more and tells Michonne, without much heat—

  
“When I was at the prison that last time, holding Shane's baby, I saw him look at me and I knew he would never be able to forget that when it all came down to it, Lori is still my wife and Carl is still my son. And I knew if I went with 'em, one day this man who says he loves me like a brother would kill me, or try to, and I'd either have to let him, or do the same. Philip knew it just lookin' at Shane the once, and he wasn't wrong; knows that kind of man, 'cause he _is_ that kind of man. But I'm no different, am I? Not a hero, not even a good person—hell, you just got through tellin' me that, like you think I don't already know. I'm the mask, I'm the lie; ruined my wife's life, way she always said I would, and if I really have ruined my son's life by now, I wouldn't be surprised. Tried so hard to convince Philip he was a good person, 'cause _I_ needed to think it was true—needed to think I wasn't fuckin' a crazy man who gets off on lying 'cause I was, what...lonely? Weak? But he's not, and he never was, though sometimes I think he wanted to be, and that means I never was, either. Means I deserve Philip, like we deserve each other.”

 _  
_It all slides out in a lump, weirdly smooth and even, with him barely raising his voice; only makes sense given how many times he's rehearsed it in his head, lying sandwiched between Lilly and the Governor. And now it's Michonne's turn to shut her eyes, if only for a second, before telling him:

“Not if you still feel guilt you don't, Rick Grimes. 'Cause that makes you not very much like him at all.”

  
“Nice of you to say, but it don't help all too much, in context. Does it?”

  
“You know, there's a legal term I think about sometimes—moral idiocy. You're a textbook definition.”

  
“Thanks...I guess.”

  
***

  
Daryl's car handles pretty good, for a vehicle's probably had biters pawing it off and on for five years straight. So Rick makes good enough time back towards Woodbury he actually manages to meet the Governor, Alisha, Tara and Pete Dolgen on the road, piled into a truck with the 50-caliber machine-gun mounted in back, probably all set to go out looking for him. Philip makes them pull a u-turn in the middle of the highway, yelling: “Richard!”, then pops his door as Rick does the same and comes striding over, baffled, angry, elated look on his newly shaggy face. Growling, while he does—

“Where in the holy hell you _been_ all this time, for Chrissakes? Felt like I was gonna have to go kill some sons of bitches, and I didn't even know who they _were_!”

  
“Philip, Jesus—” Rick pauses to stare up at him, boggling a tad. “You start growin' a beard too, or what?”

  
“Never mind 'bout that, just—don't you _do_ that to me anymore, ever. Don't you _dare_.”

  
And here—even as Rick's thinking how if he tries to hit him he'll have to knee him right in the nuts, in front of God and everybody—is where the Governor sweeps Rick up instead, grabs him by both arms and slams him back against the truck's side, kissing him 'til it hurts. Rick can see Tara Chambler grinning down at him from up above, punching Alisha in the shoulder, while Pete tries his best to studiously avoid looking anywhere but forwards; after a moment's surprise Rick finds himself relaxing into the embrace, gone from accepting to participating faster than he ever thought possible, mutual scratchiness aside. They fit together now, in a weird way. It's like, well—

  
 _Like I'm home,_ Rick thinks, aroused and apalled both, in equal measure. _Which...I am, damnit. Only home I have now, for better...and for worse._

  
And: oh, _oh._ Oh good God, he is _so_ screwed.

  
“My horse got eaten,” Rick tells Philip, at last, as they finally pull apart. “Broke the CB, too. But I did find it, Terminus—made a map, gathered as much info as I could. Campaign should take a month to mount, maybe; month and a half, you want to bring the tank.”

  
“Uh huh. Bad as we thought it'd be?”

  
“...worse. Much worse.”

  
Above and behind, Tara's face goes a shade paler, like she's only just realized what was already in play; remembering the Claimers, no doubt, and steeling herself, or trying to. But only Philip Blake would have this reaction, still nose to nose with Rick, close enough to share breath; grin wide, a smiling snarl, and answer, like it's the best Welcome Home present a too-long absent boyfriend could've given him:

“Hmmm, _excellent_.”


	9. Chapter 9

A month and a half goes by real quick, so long as you've got something to look forward to: true of Christmas, birthdays, holidays...and equally so, it turns out, of Woodbury's campaign against Terminus. Not that Rick ever really thought it wouldn't.

  
“Won't be much've a fight, overall,” Rick tells them, at that first planning session. “These people're predators, carrion-eaters, spider-hole freaks with weapons, but no numbers—take people by surprise, trade on their innocence and trust, but we're gonna go in knowing everything, and they haven't had to fight like that for a long damn time, far as I can see. Been runnin' a slaughterhouse, so let's make it a slaughter.”

  
Philip nods, eyeless brow lifting in approval. “Mmm, yeah. Go in hard, hit 'em 'til they can't hit back...”

  
“You got it, Governor. Bring down their walls, then drop a wagon-load of biters on 'em as distraction; knock out the infrastructure, the rest'll soon follow.”

  
“Bring the tank, in other words.”

  
“Well, sure, I mean...you already _know_ you wanna.”

  
Shoots him a look, then, from under half-lowered lashes, and gets one right on back in return, equal-hot, if not hotter: _always do know just what I like best, Richard, don't you?_ So off Martinez and Pete get sent, with orders to get Mitch whatever he claims he needs; Tara and Alisha get sent elsewhere, to rally the troops, recruit and train whoever else might want in after that. Shumpert gets weapons duty: take stock at the armory, make a wish-list, figure out where best to go shopping. Then it's off to the med centre, to talk with Lilly and Doc Stevens about triage.

  
That night, there's a hasty catch-up dinner with Meghan, who's shot up a good inch since Rick saw her last—once-peaked face now pink-cheeked and slightly tan from time spent hunting in the woods, her blonde hair tied back in an elaborate French braid that's got Haley fairly written all over it. “You tell Rick yet?” she demands, as Philip just shrugs, then boasts, proudly: “I _won_ at chess, finally—beat him fair and square, three out of five! Pretty good, huh?”

  
“Very impressive,” Rick agrees. “Governor mopped the floor with me for twelve months solid back when we first started playin', and I'm a full-grown man.”

  
She boggles, even as Philip can't help but crack a little smile, if only into his collar. Repeating: “A whole _year?_ ”

  
“Scout's honour.”

  
“Wow.” A beat, then: “You must've really _sucked._ ”

  
At this, all three of them guffaw, though Lilly makes sure to poke her daughter in the shoulder, disapprovingly; “That's not nice, Meghan,” she tells her. But: “Aw, let her enjoy it,” Philip chimes in. “Not like it's gonna be a regular event, or anything—”

  
“That's what _you_ think!”

  
“Yeah, that IS what I think, little girl. Think I been takin' it far too easy on you, thus far; best get ready for total war, next time.”

  
“Oh, that right?”

  
She shakes her fist in his face, a mocking threat, and he encloses it completely with one large hand, equally ferocious—shakes it back and forth a minute, then lets go with a groan, miming like he's just hurt his wrist. While she simply keeps on grinning, beaming up at him like he's everything she ever wanted in a father-figure, the bright, hot sun of her very own personal solar system: Philip Blake, new-bearded like some latter-day Viking warrior with his eyepatch turning half his face into an unexpected skull-head, from some angles. Death and the goddamn maiden.

  
“How's he been?” Rick murmurs to Lilly, under his breath, who gives him a thumbs-up where the table blocks Philip from seeing it, 'less he knows enough to turn his head. And God knows, the Governor _does_ seem a trifle more relaxed than he's been wont to recently, 'specially with this queer little thing sassing at him, teasing him like a mainly-tame bear. Fake family firmly reunited, Woodbury still on track, and—even better—a clear promise of carnage yet to come...

  
Later, they repair back to Philip's and celebrate with a session that's almost excruciatingly thorough, leaving everybody equally exhausted. First Rick and Lilly go at it, all set up in bed with her on top and the Governor watching from his famous barcalounger, long legs sprawled out while he keeps himself primed, his one eye roaming restless from one to the other and back again like he just can't get enough of admiring either on their own, let alone the impossibly pretty picture they make together. And then it's Rick's turn to get served, with barely a chance to recuperate—Philip lifts Lilly free and gives her a gentle, searching kiss before laying her back down alongside as he takes her place, stretching himself over Rick's sweat-sticky body like a shroud. Kisses him just as long but considerably less softly, 'til Rick's breathless, 'til his jaw aches; slides down 'til he has his face buried in Rick's lap and Rick's knees slung up over either shoulder, spread wide enough he can get his tongue into him to the root, licking 'til all Rick's secret parts are whisker-abraded and aching-wet.

  
And: _Oh my good GOD,_ Rick thinks, groaning out loud, not sure if he means it like a prayer or a curse. _Oh Christ, Jesus, Jesus fuckin'_ Christ! Hearing the Governor laugh straight into the open heart of him at the sound, screwing in first one finger, then two, then three, as the same woman Rick made come not more than five minutes back turns on her side to watch, fascinated, hand dug deep between her thighs. Hearing himself all-but-beg, at the very same moment: “Asshole, bastard, son of a bitch—stop messin' 'round and just goddamn well do it, goddamnit!”

  
Philip rolls his forehead in the cradle of Rick's stomach and grins up at him, pushing Rick's hard cock aside but giving it a kiss as it goes by, teeth out just enough to scratch. Asking, as he does: “Do _what,_ exactly, Richard?”

  
“ _Any_ damn thing, shit—”

  
“Ah now, though: really do wanna be specific, I'd think, at times like these. Don't want to put yourself at the mercy of any...harsh surprises.”

  
“Oh, fuck you, Philip—feel free to go on ahead and _surprise_ me, that's all that's holdin' this up! We both got more'n enough stuff to—”

  
But here, all at once, the light, bantering tone drops straight down to a growl, thick and dark as ditchwater, as the Governor snaps back: “ _Not right now,_ 'we' damn well don't.”

  
A wrench, a spring, freight-train fast and hard—and suddenly they're up against each other nose to mouth, with Rick bent even farther out of shape and Philip seated almost to the hilt, 'fore either of them can do much more than gasp. Braces his palms on the headboard and goes at Rick 'til the two of them blend into one equal-terrifying conjoined sex-monster: snarling, biting, howling straight down each other's throats at the crux of it with the sounds of Lilly's second climax sung counterpoint, as the whole world dims to only here, only now, only this.

  
Minutes after, Rick comes back to himself with a kink in his back, a stitch in his side and a throat like sandpaper, still crushed flat under Philip's screwed-out weight. Orders him to _get the hell OFF,_ hoarsely, and slaps at the big bastard with one kitten-weak hand 'til he finally rouses himself enough to roll free and sprawl face-to-mattress, stretching 'til his spine cracks as Lilly reaches to stroke Rick's mussed head, trying to soothe him down.

  
“Well,” she says, after a moment. “That was...fairly epic.”

  
Rick's not yet recovered enough to do much more than roll his eyes, but manages, nonetheless. “You think?” he asks.

  
“Somewhat, yeah. I mean—it's a _guy_ thing, right? This type of grand, dramatic...international competition level-style sexual althletics.”

  
Philip huffs a laugh, only slightly muffled, into the damply tangled bedsheets. “Just what is it you're tryin' to say here, honey? Feelin' left out?”

  
“Oh no, no—I like all my parts pretty much right where they are, thank you very much, so you can just go on treating me different, 'cause that's absolutely _fine._ ” A beat. “Does seem a bit hard on poor Rick, though.”

  
Rick heaves a sigh, choosing his next words carefully. “Whatever he's got to dish out, I can handle,” he maintains, at last, and Philip pats his chest without turning, more than happy to take his word for it. Like: _That's right, Richard, I know you can; just like I can, for you, as you're very well aware..._

  
But Lilly just shakes her head and snuggles up to him, touch so gentle in Philip's wake, it almost comes close to breaking what's left of Rick's heart.

  
“We missed you, you know,” she tells him, softly. “A lot.”

  
“I know,” he replies. Then adds, after a pause: “And I missed you, too—”

  
( _—the both of you._ )

  
Eventually, they doze off together, only to wake at the usual hour—5:00 AM—in those last few seconds before the alarm-clock rings. Rick lets Lilly check his bruises over (from last night, as well as last week) while Philip gets coffee and breakfast going, bustling 'round their tiny kitchen like the world's most outsized short-order cook, 'til she finally asks: “How'd your horse end up getting _eaten_ , anyhow?”

  
“Been sort of wonderin' about that myself, I gotta say,” the Governor chimes in, cracking a couple of eggs into the pan, striking a recognizable shadow of that same oh-so-reasonable fake Dad pose always works so well with Meghan. Which is something Rick could certainly take issue with, given they're both just as well-qualified to fill _that_ particular slot, but doesn't really feel like doing so; he's good and tired from all that on-his-back exertion, still, yet also feeling oddly warm towards Lilly and Philip both, no matter how many of his paces they might've put Rick through since yesterday, together...

  
Yeah, all that. Besides which, he remembers what happened the last time he tried to misrepresent something right to Philip's face—how well _that_ ended up working out, for everyone concerned.

  
So: “Okay,” he begins. “I won't lie to you, Philip, not this time. Happened 'cause I took a little detour from the arranged route, basically—into Cynthiana, to get _this._ ”

  
And here he rummages in his jacket, hanging down over the back of the chair he's sitting in, to find that photo Michonne and Daryl helped him retrieve. Offers it out to them, cradled in the palm of his hand, and sees Philip's lips twitch under the new beard's stubble as he connects faces to names, recognizing them from their last stop-over in Woodbury; Carl's far younger than when he met him, obviously, but Lori...well, she looks almost the same. Never did like to change her hair too much, not when she'd spent all that time growing it out, in high school.

  
Lilly takes the photo and examines it, smiling. Then tells Rick, looking back up: “Well, I know this handsome, beardless man in the blue shirt, obviously...but who are these two?”

  
“That's my wife, Lori,” Rick replies, touching his thumb to the happy, faded face in question, even as he glances up over Lilly's shoulder at the Governor—now standing stock-still with one hand hooked into his belt and the other on the hilt of his knife, like if he doesn't press it down hard it might just jump out and go wandering off of its own accord, as the eggs sizzle happily alongside him. “And that's my son, Carl. Ten years old when that was taken, I think.”

  
“Good-looking boy.”

  
“Yes. Takes after his Mama, thankfully.”

  
“Mostly, yeah. Though he does seem to have your eyes, to me.”

  
Rick shifts his gaze back to the photo: maybe so, now he thinks about it. From the corner of his eye, he can _almost_ see Philip snap from his momentary funk and turn back to the pan, scraping away with his spatula and frowning at the result; Lilly turns her smile on him now, and he meets it headlong, lips stretching just a bit wider than necessary. Then pauses just long enough to dole out enough eggs to fill all three plates and slaps down a thick slice of bread for each as well, lightly toasted on top from where he laid them straight on the grill: _here's for you, Richard; Lilly, here's for you._ Sets his own down with a clink and asks Rick, voice studiously schooled even: “Mind if I take a look?”

  
It's a test, and Rick knows it—feels his hackles go up at the very thought of giving this precious relic away even for an instant, the sudden image of it crumpled and thrust into the kerosene-fed flames before he can think to protest, let alone try and stop it happening. But it's not as though he has any sort of choice here, really.

  
“'Course,” Rick says, therefore, and hands it over. And the Governor, _Philip_...oh please be Philip, _please,_ right about now...

  
...he studies it, that's all, at least as long as Lilly, if not longer. Like he's trying to commit it to memory. Before stepping away, back towards the bed, where he leans it neatly against the side of his own careful-framed family portrait: the Blakes in better times, heads bowed together and showing their teeth, out in what Rick can only assume used to be their back yard. With Sarah and Penny on the one side, close enough to touch, and Philip leaning in from the other, like a tourist—a visitor from some whole other country, face genially creased, waiting for some passing stranger with a camera to snap proof he was ever here at all.

  
What used to be the bedroom key hangs down between them yet, chain-strung, a clear divide separating living and dead; same one Philip used to lock himself in with Penny's walking corpse, before Rick took it on himself to jimmy the door and make him do what they both know was the right thing, and still is. But for once, Philip actually doesn't seem to be thinking about that.

  
“There,” he says, at last, more to himself than anyone else. “That's better, isn't it?”

  
 _Yes,_ Rick finds himself thinking, in grateful surprise. _Yes, it is._

  
***

  
Soon enough, the time's already gone by like a blink, a blur, a gulp. And before Rick knows it they're standing there in Terminus, some weedy hipster named Gareth and a long-haired woman who calls herself Mary crouching at their feet with both hands up, Alisha and Pete pressing gun-muzzles to the backs of their skulls. Behind he and Philip, Mitch is bringing the tank in over what's left of the wall he blew down, squashing rows of gutted and hamstrung biters as he does; the rest of the incursion force are engaged in either subduing Terminites or clearing the place room by room, each one revealing yet more horrors: a trough full of fresh blood with a line of shackled, throat-cut bodies leant across it, probably killed while the attack was just getting underway, plus refrigerator-cars full of butchered human carcasses, or the meat they've been reduced to. That memorial shrine and the yard-full of zombified loved ones beyond, both chained up and roaming, blundering 'round like bees in a jar or occasionally staring through a glass-set door back into the world they'll never rejoin.

  
It's a slice of refried hell, bad even by apocalypse standards; Rick can feel each successive minute he spends here making him a little less human—the weight of all this awfulness crawling 'round on his skin like yet another rot-gorged fly, one more contaminated insect added to an already-unbearable swarm. And Philip, meanwhile...he can barely contain himself, shaking ever-so-slightly all over, face contorted like he's swallowed live coals. Stands there glaring down at Gareth with knife in hand, bloody to the elbows, and demands: “The fuck is _wrong_ with you people, goddamnit? Play on folks' hopes and trap 'em like rats just so's you can keep yourselves fed without farmin', turn your home into a death-camp murder factory...kill your own damn kids and keep 'em 'round to eat the scraps, like they're animals in some Christforsaken zombie zoo...”

  
Gareth just shakes his head, however, grinning like some hipster hyena. Retorting: “Oh, like you wouldn't've done the same—like you haven't already, _Governor._ ” Adding, as Philip reacts: “That's right, we know you, 'cause everybody does; got a reputation spread far and wide, don't ever worry about _that._ Philip Blake from Woodbury, the gated community pirate king, with your cop boyfriend and your zombie daughter. Really think you're flying under the radar, given all you two get up to?”

  
Philip guffaws at that, long and loud, and if anybody else but Rick can hear the mild edge of hysteria in it, they aren't talking. “Don't give a runny shit who-all _knows_ me, little boy,” he growls back, “most 'specially not some bunch of terrorist cannibal freaks like _you._ Just hope those who do have enough good sense that when they see me comin', they get the hell out of my way.”

  
Mary hitches a sob and lets the fingers of one hand ball up, then bows her head as if she wants to start praying. But Gareth simply shakes his head again, smile dimming somewhat, and meets Philip's ferocious stare without flinching.

  
“Don't even know what you've done here, do you?” he asks. “The whirlwind you're gonna reap—not yet, anyways. But you will soon enough, make no mistake. You will.”

  
Now it's Rick's turn to shrug, as Philip snorts and rolls his neck out, completely unimpressed. “Nothin' much left to talk about, then, I'd think,” he says, levelling his Colt's barrel at Gareth's heart. “Want to make my peace pretty damn quick, under the circumstances, if I was you.”

  
“Peace? Not a lot of of that left over, Officer, as you've probably noticed; _we_ sure did, a few years back, right before we started in on this little experiment of ours. But feel free to do whatever makes you feel good about yourselves, okay? 'Cause it's not like I don't believe in any sort of afterlife, exactly...but wherever I end up once you're done with me, I really do hope I at least get to see what happens after you find out what kind of shit you just stepped in, how deep it goes. And then I'm gonna _laaauuuuughhhh..._ ”

  
Rick shoots Philip a look only to get nothing but the Governor in return, regarding Gareth from the very top of his great height and with his head cocked sideways, like he thinks if he only stares at him long enough, he'll be able to burn a hole right through him. But eventually, since that doesn't actually happen, he gives himself a little shake and asks, without turning—

  
“Still got that hatchet on you, Richard?”

  
“Yup.”

  
“Give it to me, then.”

  
An order, not a request, but Rick doesn't feel the need to question it. Simply hands it over and switches his Colt to Mary, who doesn't quite cringe at the sight.

  
“You have children, Officer, don't you?” she asks him, to which he nods, cocking the hammer. “Oh yes, I knew it. I can always tell.”

  
“So you understand why I'm doin' this...why _we_ are.”

  
“Certainly.” She nods towards the glass, those milling dead faces, drop-jawed with stupid hunger. “Mine would've ended up in there, that bad, bad winter—that's why I killed them in their sleep before they could starve to death, while there was still some good meat left on them. So I could keep them with me, at least a little while longer.”

  
Nothing to say to something like that, so Rick doesn't even bother. Just pulls the trigger, once, as Philip swoops down on Gareth—slashes the knife's blade across his abdomen and lets the guts gush out, then buries the hatchet in the back of Gareth's neck when he doubles over, reflexively but ineffectively trying to gather them back up. Blood arcs up, splashing Alisha enough to make her jump back just a bit, while Pete just stands there looking sick, drawn up to full attention. “Don't waste one bullet more on these sons of bitches,” Philip orders them both, kicking Gareth in the wound; “tell everybody!” And that's when they break ranks at last, nodding, to take off running.

  
Philip goes down on one knee and pulls the hatchet out, then brings it down again, again, again, 'til Gareth's head rolls free; offers Rick his knife to do the same to Mary, and Rick accepts it. It's a longer process for him, though not quite as long as it turns out to take to clear Terminus completely without firing another shot, and there's plenty more awfulness yet to come along the way.

But by the time they're back on the road the place is dark all over and quiet at last save for the sounds of Gareth and Mary's heads, set up on poles, grinding their teeth and groaning into the reeking wind.


	10. Chapter 10

_Smell the gunpowder and you see the blood, and you know what that means? It means you're alive. Means that you WON._

  
Philip said that to Merle Dixon, once, according to Daryl—along with all sorts of other equal-crazy shit, much of which sounded sadly familiar to Rick, given he's heard most of it before, and from the same source: _Take the heads, so you won't ever forget; we're none of us soldiers, but we're all of us killers, now—have to be. Can't not and survive, with this world the way it is, in this life..._

 _  
...you kill or you die, damnit. Or you die, and you kill._

  
Just the constant background noise inside the Governor's head, Rick guesses, now louder and now softer, depending on what's going on outside his skull. Which is why usually, this sort of violent blow-off acts like popping a boil for him, a sort of intermittent mental colonic...but not this time, apparently. Instead, he sits there with his head down, staring at his own red hands while the rescued boxcar prisoners whisper their terrible stories in his and Rick's ears: that girl Sasha and her boyfriend Bob, for example (a former combat medic, so there's another genuine medical professional to add to the med centre roster, at the very least), as well as her much darker, larger brother Tyreese, fever-shaking and shocked to silence, whose right arm's truncated remains have been wrapped tight in “bandages” so filthy that the ragged stump—severed messily, at an angle sheared straight through what used to be his elbow, leaving nothing to fit a prostethic to—is all one inflamed, suppurating sore.

  
“Wouldn't stop fightin' them every time they came and pulled somebody out for the butchers, or complainin' how they weren't feedin' us enough to keep us alive,” she tells Rick, her voice listless, as though this all happened to somebody else. “So they cut his arm off with a chainsaw and cooked it, made him eat most of the meat.” Then a pause, a stuttered half-sob, after which she admits: “And, oh God...I had some too, in the end. He begged me to, Tyreese...so I could keep my strength up, for me and Bob's baby...”

  
(On the other side of Philip, Rick can just make out Bob watching, cheeks wet but otherwise stone-faced—and while Philip still doesn't seem to be listening, Rick knows damn well that he is, anyhow. Something 'bout the set of his shoulders that gives it away, when you've been with him as long as Rick has; it's unmistakable, 'specially in close quarters.)

  
“Didn't work, though,” Sasha concludes, at last. “I lost it anyway and Bob pulled it out of me, just wrapped it up in his coat, wouldn't let me see. Didn't even have anywhere to put it, standing there for days in the dark with our filth mounting up 'round our ankles...'til _you_ came, all of you, thank Christ Almighty. Came and got us out of there, and killed every last one of those—fuckin' _monsters,_ doin' it—”

  
Rick pats her hand awkwardly, not knowing what the hell else he can possibly have to offer, by way of comfort. Replying, as he does: “Uh huh, that's right, that's fine. So sorry you had to see that, ma'am, after all you already been through...”

  
“Oh no, don't—don't. It's...not okay, never will be, but we can move on now, at least; have to think that. I just _gotta._ ”

  
And that's how it goes, all the way home. One horrifying tale after another, with Rick playing counsellor and Philip playing—nothing, that he can see, from over here. Re-running the day's events in his head, maybe, wondering exactly what Gareth might've meant about stepping in deep shit, 'sides from _oh PLEASE don't kill me and stick me on a pole, Br'er Governor._ Or asking himself why they never did find that rumored big pile of victim-looted stuff, either; that's gotta be weighing on him too, Rick thinks, considering how long he's been looking forward to it.

  
But his face hardly changes from Terminus back to Woodbury, 'less you count the way the blood on it fades from red to brown, and when they emerge at the end to find Lilly waiting for them, Philip's still pretty much the same gory object he was when they set fire to that hell-hole and turned the tank around. She stares at him a moment, taken aback, a state of affairs he frankly doesn't seem to notice—not even when she runs to grab him by one hand, Rick by the other, demanding: “God, oh my Lord, what the hell _happened_ out there? You're covered in _biohazard,_ Philip—”

  
And: “S'alright, Lilly, it's nothin',” Rick hastens to tell her, but Philip just waves her away with groan and bends over, hands braced on his knees like he's barely able to stand, snapping: “We're _fine,_ Lilly—got people with damage out there need tendin', _real_ trauma, so go give it to 'em.”

  
“I will, obviously! But you don't look fine to _me._ ”

  
“Am, though—right, Rick?” Rick nods. “Yeah, sure. Him and me, we'll just...take a minute to deal with ourselves, honey, please. Please.”

  
“Rick?”

  
She's appealing to him to be tie-breaker, the objective one here, but Rick just nods, equal-exhausted. “We're okay,” he agrees, trying his best to show her he understands her fears while still supporting Philip, who's by now grabbed onto his arm like grim death. “But it's true, you're needed here—survivors we brought back got the worst wounds I've ever seen, inside and out, and we can't do shit for them, but you can. Doc Stevens already waitin' in triage?” She nods. “Then you talk to Martinez, get 'im to form a clean-up squad just in case, and be careful; these folks've been eating...contaminated meat at best, under circumstances I wouldn't keep dogs in, and if they do start to change, it's gonna be hard and fast. So you need— _he_ needs—to be ready.”

  
“Well, shit...where're _you_ two going to be, in the meantime?”

  
“Back at home, cleaning off, maybe let the him rest up a little, with me on watch. We'll debrief after, once you got some real information to discuss.” Lower: “Had anything like a sleepin' pill, to calm him down, I'd be real grateful.”

  
Lilly nods, eyes on Philip—now looking elsewhere, thankfully, his thousand-yard stare firmly back in place, seemingly oblivous to the chaos all around—and rummages in her pack, passing Rick a couple of little pink ovals. “This is Clonazepam, for anxiety, but it has mainly the same effect. Don't let him mix it with alcohol.”

  
Rick shakes his head. “Don't think he _has_ any, anymore—”

  
“No, believe me: he does.” 

  
And here she pauses, looks like she wants to ask him to elaborate on what exactly might've happened, to get the Governor so all-fired riled up...but a minute later just gives a curt nod, waves them both off and lets it go, for which Rick'll be always eternally grateful. Given all he could possibly say in explanation would be: _Well, he did cut a couple people's heads off, after three years on the wagon—but I managed to convince him to leave 'em behind when we left, which I'm choosin' to count as a plus._

  
***

  
Then they're under the spray together, both naked, Philip standing there like a huge, shaggy horse while Rick goes over him with the carbolic soap they got from that meat-packing plant, over by Locust Grove. He's still vibrating lightly to the touch and his remaining pupil is blown, wider than Rick thinks he's seen it in years—not like it's turned inwards, so much, as like he just can't figure out what to focus on. The eyepatch they left in the sink, soaking, so that mess of scar tissue on the other side is finally visible for the first time in almost as long; mainly healed, so the centre where what's left of the ball peeps out looks pinkish-white and buff rather than blue-tinged red with a core of yellowing brown—not exactly attractive but no longer painful, neither to look at nor to live with.

  
“Head up,” Rick says, combing his fingers through the Governor's beard 'til the water runs pink, then clear. “Okay, now down...shut your eye. Yeah, that's got the worst of it.” Waits for a reply, and gets only a murmur, barely audible: “What? Say that again, I couldn't—”

  
“...fucked up, I really...”

  
“— _what?_ ”

  
Philip shakes his head, last of the blood snapping off in droplets, blushing the tiles behind. “What I _said,_ ” he repeats, hoarsely, so low it's like he'd talking to himself, “'s how I fucked _up,_ I...yeah, that was wrong, what I did there, all wrong, that was...bad. A _really_ bad idea. I just, just, I...don't...”

  
“Philip?”

  
“...'cause I mean, they'll never look at me the same way, people who saw, and...Tara, God, did you see her? Crying? She won't ever, and Lilly too, she can't, I can't expect her...no, no, she can't ever know, she can't. Just wouldn't...understand it.”

  
“Yes she would; she's strong, you know that. Like Meghan. So you'll tell her why it had to happen, explain it all. We'll tell her, together.”

  
“We will?”

  
“Sure. 'Course.”

  
“You'll help me.”

  
“Like always, yeah.”

  
“...okay, Richard. Okay.”

  
Gets 'em both out and reasonably dry, using up most of the towels—those'll have to be boiled, Rick thinks—and then Philip's already striding out into the living room, plopping down into the barcalounger, still slightly damp and entirely nude. By the time Rick's made sure the eyepatch is wearable once more, however, he comes out to find the Governor rummaging through those cupboards above the stove that no one else is tall enough to reach; brings down a fifth of whisky Rick obviously missed in the big purge, grabs a tumbler and pours two fingers, bolts it.

  
“Hey, hold up,” Rick calls, but Philip ignores him, and pours another; Rick grabs the bottle away while he's drinking it, then snaps his fingers, and waits 'til he gives up the glass. Then orders him: “Sit your ass back down,” which he does, groaning; genuinely might've forgot how he took those pills earlier, but if he did, his body's making sure he remembers.

  
“Don't feel good,” Philip mutters, as Rick pours the rest of the booze down the sink. “Oh, man. I just...” he trails off, finally demanding, like he hadn't asked Gareth the same damn thing to his face already, before separating it from the rest of him: “...what the hell was _wrong_ with them, at Terminus? That wasn't...I don't understand it— _can't_ understand, any of it. I don't _want_ to.”

  
“I know, Philip.”

  
“I mean, I've done stuff, you know? Yeah, 'course you do: you were there. Bad things, worse that _that_ by far, 'cause no one could say killin' those sons of bitches wasn't justified. What they did, what they...allowed to _be_ done...” He stops, takes a second. “I'd shoot Meghan myself, in the face, 'fore I'd ever let anything like that happen to her. Lilly too...”

  
“Yeah, I know you would.”

  
This terrible sympathy, worse than any wound. It's the infection that'll end up killing Rick for feeling it on the Governor's behalf, one of these days, even though he knows damn well the man probably can't feel it on anyone's but his own. Maybe even kill 'em both, in the end.

  
And: “Think I don't love 'em, not really, but I do,” Philip slurs, reading Rick's mind yet again, which probably isn't the feat Rick keeps on acting like it is. “Meghan 'n' Lilly, Sarah 'n' Penny...same thing, exact same. Couldn't do without 'em.” Slides his eye Rick's way, then, and adds: “...you, either.”

  
“So what, you _love_ me?”

  
“Is that...s'hard to believe?”

  
 _Depends on your standards, I guess,_ Rick thinks, but doesn't say. “C'mon to bed,” he says instead, wedging a shoulder under one of the Governor's outflung arms, and lifting. 

  
They stagger into the next room together, where he lets Philip drop back across the sheets—still rumpled from this morning—and spends a moment trying to raise his head far enough to get the eyepatch back on before giving up, throwing it on the nightstand instead. But the Governor doesn't even seem to notice, just keeps on lolling there, high as the proverbial kite. Glances up at the ceiling, screws his eye shut and quotes, from memory—

“'He who hath wife and children hath given hostages to Fortune'...that's Francis Bacon, read it in some course I took in University, to get next to Sarah. Keeps on runnin' through my head now, over and over, no matter what I do...”

  
Rick snorts. “Very poetic. But I am NOT your _wife,_ you unbelievable jackass.”

  
“Shit, I know _that!_ You're my...” He stops here a minute, brow wrinkling, struggling to quantify it. “...good right hand, partner, friend—yeah, that's it, best I ever had, my only. My...”

  
“...brother?” Rick prompts. Which makes it Philip's turn to snort instead, implying: _Oh,_ Christ _no._

  
“Like you a little bit more than _that,_ ” he says, finally.

  
“I used to call Shane my brother.”

  
“Well, uh huh—then see? That _never_ works out.”

  
Unable to come up with much of a response otherwise, Rick simply shrugs, sighs and shoves at him 'til he squirms a little further over, then lies down alongside, allowing Philip to throw an arm across him and nuzzle into his neck—more for comfort than anything else, that he can see, since neither of them seems particularly aroused.

“Never did tell me his name, in all this time,” he observes, at last, after a long moment. “That famous hero brother of yours.” To which the Governor huffs, then says something unintelligible; Rick frowns, and asks: “What was that?”

  
“...Philip. 'S name was Philip.”

  
“No, _you_ 're Philip.”

  
“What?”

  
“ _You_ 're Philip, _Philip._ And he was...?”

  
“Naw, 'm Brian, idiot. Brian...Blake.”

  
 _The holy goddamn HELL?_

  
Of all the odd shit the Governor's ever said to him, this has to be the capper—weird enough to jolt Rick back up, suddenly awake, and slapping Phi-... _whoever_ 's...face, lightly. “Hey!” he demands, as he does. “Hey, just what you damn well mean by that, _Brian_? Don't you dare go to sleep! Need to wake the fuck up, and explain...”

  
“What I _said,_ 's what I _mean._ Don't y'ever listen t'me?”

  
 _Well, since I pretty much got no_ choice, _then YES. Could write a damn list on everything you told me the last five years, much's I doubt you could do the same..._

  
“You _tell_ me, goddamnit,” Rick repeats, through his teeth. So the Governor does, eventually—rambles loopily through the whole sad, predictable story while Rick sits there fuming, berating himself for being such a credulous goddamn asshole: classic tale of two brothers, one good and treated with love, encouragement, pride, other “bad” and treated with abuse, negativity, indifference. And hearing Michonne in his head as the whole thing proceeds, too, reminding him how many similar epics the man's spun for other people: _Prosecuted guys like him before, and they don't ever change. Lie, cheat and steal, do whatever they think they can get away with, blame other people for their own misery..._

  
“I was—the disappointment,” that rumbling voice tells him, right into Rick's skin, magnified like it's coming from Rick's own throat. “The wrong one, always. Younger 'n' dumber, 's what the old man used to say; Philip walked on fuckin' water, 'n' I did anything but. 'Need to set your watch by him, Brian—your brother's got real character, he's a man. Never takes the easy way out.' 'Course, to _that_ redneck moron 'easy' was tryin' for college 'stead'a the army...not like he could've done it himself, even workin' three jobs. Or goddamn _Philip,_ either.”

  
“Uh huh.”

“Day Philip signed up, old man almost cried. Me, I thought he was an asshole for goin' overseas, riskin' his life for nothin' 'n' leavin' me behind, with _him_. Never so happy in all my worthless life 's when I found out he was dead, just so's I got t' see what deliverin' the news did to our Daddy first-hand.” Rick nods again, not looking at him but not looking away, waiting for the other shoe to drop—and drop it does at last, Governor's voice thinning to a whisper. “But I loved him, Philip, don't think I didn't; had that effect on people, always. Tore me up inside, when he come back in a box—but on some other level, he hadn't stepped in front of a bullet, I'd've ended up killin' him myself. 'Cause Cain loved Abel too, right up until the point that motherfucker stole God's love away forever, with not one goddamn scrap left behind.”

  
 _Fuckin' Biblical,_ Rick thinks, like Judith instead of Penny. And has a moment's brief flash of teenaged Phi— _Brian_ Bake, full height but nothing like his adult weight, aching in every gawky limb at once; sees him standing sullen in the back of a hundred family snapshots with his lip pooched out, arms crossed and frowning as he tries his best to look blank, to not give any more offence than he already did by simply existing. Rick's own childhood would've been a damn good time compared to that kid's, dead Dad and single Mom aside, in retrospect—Shane's too, for all Shane and Brian would've still hated each other enough on sight to try killing each other, or found some way to trap Rick into trying to stop 'em from doing so.

  
And: _oh, screw YOU, Governor-to-be, whatever your “real” name is or isn't. Fuck you forever for somehow managing to make me care about your pain, even now, when I already know you're incapable of feeling mine..._

  
“Then Z-day came,” the Governor continues, oblivious, “'n' Penny, she was...terrified, near-catatonic. Think she'd forgotten I ever _had_ 'nother name, 'sides from 'Daddy.'” A gusty, racking sigh. “So I saved Milton, saved the next bunch too, 'n' the next...justabout every-damn-body I met, saved 'n' oh so thankful, _everybody,_ but her. Like I was blessed, or cursed. Like I was a whole 'nother person. S'when they asked me what my name was, I realized I could tell them anything, 'cause who's left to tell 'em any different? How could they know they got the wrong Blake brother, and which of 'em'd care? They wanted me to be Philip—hell, _needed_ it. So...I was.”

  
 _Yeah, that's right. And you never did forget that lesson, did you? Been building on it ever since, one fresh lie at a time._

  
“Could _be_ him,” the Governor says, slowly, “but better. 'Cause I was _alive,_ not dead like some dumb-ass hero, to keep _them_ alive. Not a one of 'em would've made it this far but for me, and—you, later on. Said so yourself, near a hundred times...”

  
“I did, yeah.”

  
“People _liked_ Philip, so I made 'em like me. He was a soldier, so I made myself one. 'N' now there's nobody but me even knows he was ever here, guess I don't really _have_ to keep on bein' him, but...on some level, I just... _want_ to. Be better than I know I am, deep down, for Meghan, Lilly—Woodbury. For...”

  
( _you, Richard_ )

  
Rick waits for it, half-hating himself for doing so, the logical next lie, with his heart thumping shamefully. But hears nothing 'sides a steady ebb and flow of breath, strong like the tide...then waits a few moments more, 'til at last he realizes the son of a bitch's already fallen asleep.

  
Lying there, wondering what the hell he can possibly say about it, that won't sound ridiculous: _You've been lying to me the whole time I've known you, and that offends me, damnit_? Yeah, like he wasn't well aware of that, already. That it goes so deep, though...that the first lie is something _so_ fundamental, so _integral_...

  
 _Need to have_ integrity _to be that, though, Rick,_ Michonne tells him, from that same place he sometimes hears Shane speak. _Which he most CERTAINLY_ _does not_.

...but Christ, again, what does it matter? What good would it do, to even get angry over?

  
Philip Blake or Brian, both equally the truth, equally a lie; been Philip all the time Rick's known him, so overall, he's probably earned it. But he's the Governor first and foremost, no matter what, and always will be—so from now on, Rick's just gonna call him that in his mind, 'til the day they both die.

  
 _Made my choice,_  Rick Grimes thinks, yet one more time. And shuts his eyes.

  
***

  
Next morning, as Rick's shaking out the worst of his kinks from having slept most've the night in a huge, drunk man's embrace, the Governor comes strolling out of the bathroom all freshly-dressed, upright and smiling, with hardly a trace of hangover. “Don't recall one damn thing 'bout last night,” he tells Rick, by way of a greeting, to which Rick replies: “Probably for the best.”

  
Back at their office, debrief goes fairly smoothly. According to Martinez, the Terminus refugees who've opted to stay have been processed already, while those who'd rather take their chances on the road 'cause they just don't trust things at face value anymore are being readied for release back into the wild following established protocol, which means they'll be given a schoolbus and supplies but no weapons, and their descriptions'll be passed around all sentry-posts as “shoot on sight.”

  
Lilly gives them the butcher's bill—six dead to fifteen recovering, Tyreese included, though Doc Stevens did have to amputate the rest of his arm to the shoulder; no one changed during the night, either, which is about as much of a mercy as they could possibly hope for. And after, she kisses them both and leaves for the med centre, promising to come by the office with lunch, once they're done vetting phase three planning committee reports. Second after the door closes behind her, however, the Governor's swung 'round in his chair, asking Rick—

  
“Thing that kid Gareth said, 'bout bringin' down a storm...what d'you think he meant?”

  
Rick shrugs, not looking up from his papers. “He was bullshittin', is all—tryin' to get you to keep him alive, or maybe kill him even faster. Guy was crazy as a crap-house rat, and that's a simple fact.”

  
“Hmmm, yeah. 'Cept I'm fairly up on my bullshit, as I think we'd both agree, and that didn't sound like it, to me. Not completely, anyhow.”

  
Rick shoots him a look, then, cooler by far than he feels. Reminding him, as he does: “Well, not like we'll ever know now, given. Is it? So I guess you'll just have to keep on wonderin', 'til we somehow happen to find out different...”

  
 _...Brian._


	11. Chapter 11

Things get better 'til they get worse, it's always the way of it, Rick Grimes has thus far found. Only thing ever seems to vary is the angle the blow comes from, plus the exact gradient of the downhill slide, afterwards.

  
Day or so past the Governor's big drunk-and-high revelation on the matter of his “true” identity, Meghan comes running up to him in the street, face squinched in worry, and demands: “Mom says you're okay, but you really _are,_ right? 'Cause Aunt Tara, she keeps telling people you came back, like, _covered_ in blood—”

  
He crinkles his eye and beams down at her, making a dismissive, scoffing sound. “What? Oh no, honey, she's mistaken; I'm fine. Ain't that right, Richard?”

  
“Basically, yeah.”

  
Pretty weak show of support, Rick guesses, but Meghan won't be so easily soothed anyhow, either way—just addresses herself directly to the Governor again, like Rick's not even there. “But...she says it was all _over_ you.”

  
“Well, that's right. Forgot to tell you the single most important thing, though, which is—”

  
“What?”

  
“—it wasn't _mine._ ”

  
Gives her a truly fearsome smile in return then, biting it off, like some snappy punchline; Meghan's eyes go wide, same's if she's seen a ghost. And for just one moment, Rick sincerely finds himself hoping this's the camel's back-breakingly misconceived parenting mistake he's been subconsciously waiting on, all this time. That the Governor— _Philip,_ fine, might as well go back to calling him Philip, 'cause why the fuck not?—has finally miscalculated enough to set the gal free by default, send her runnin' on back to Mama...

  
But apparently not. Since the very next thing she does is take a mere second to think, before asking: “Did they deserve it?”

  
Philip nods, no shred of hesitation, then glances over at Rick again, who halfway thinks he should object, 'cause once upon a time—with Carl, for example—Rick would have tried to deny it, for show if nothing else: guilty until proven innocent, all that. But these days, he doesn't see the point of bothering.

  
So: “Yeah,” he agrees, instead. “They did. They _really_ did.”

  
“Okay,” she says, and runs away again.

  
***

  
After Philip's little overnight melt-down, Rick finds it almost funny—in a truly black way—that when one of the former Termites finally comes forward to offer an actual explanation for Gareth, Mary and the others' behaviour, it apparently makes the Governor feel better, not worse, about how he decided to deal with that particular problem. This man, Eugene, explains how the signs were real once, not a lure; how Gareth, and Mary (his mother!) were genuinely committed to offering vagrants shelter, to “staying human,” right up until one bunch of such occupied Terminus and ran rotating gang-rapes for weeks on end. That was when their philosophy got all switched around, and they took as their credo the firm belief you could only be either the cattle...or the butchers.

  
“They brought us in, fed us a plate or two of barbecue, then told us what we'd been eating,” Eugene concludes. “Asked us if we were okay with that, and the guy I was with—his name was Abraham, he was a soldier—said 'hell, no,' so they ate him the day after.”

  
“And what'd _you_ say?” Rick wants to know.

  
“Well, they kinda assumed he spoke for all of us, I guess, so they never asked again. Been up to me, though, I might've said yes, then snuck out the back while eveybody was asleep...or not.” Which makes Rick, at least, take a far closer look at him—but Eugene simply shrugs, weird mullet of his ruffling a bit in the wind, and says: “Look, I just want to be crystal, here, all out in the open. Got a mission to complete, and that dude was my best chance, 'less you guys want to help out with that.”

  
“Depends on what it is.”

  
“Gettin' me to Washington, so I can cure the zombie virus.”

  
The Governor and Rick exchange a glance, equally unimpressed. And: “Nope,” Philip says. “Won't be signin' on for that one, anytime soon—I mean, it's a damn smart ploy to keep yourself looked after, given you don't seem all too handy with a gun, or anything else. So if you can sell somebody else on shepherding you along then go to it, with our blessing...but Officer Grimes and me, we've got a town to run.”

  
Eugene doesn't seem all too surprised by this response, but tries to appeal to Rick, nonetheless. "That 'bout the size of it for you, too?" he asks, sadly.

  
Rick shrugs. "Pretty much," he admits.

  
“Damn, man. Life really _is_ a bitch.”

  
“So there you have it,” the Governor observes, once their would-be savior's moved on. “Brought it on 'emselves.”

  
“That's fairly harsh, don't you think?”

  
“Hell if it is, Richard—you don't just let people in without checkin' 'em first, no more'n you trust biters not to bite; didn't build _this_ place on that sort'a peace and love bullshit, did we? Strong walls, lots of guns and a skeptical mind, that's what keeps people safe. Hell, you're better than me by far, and still can't see _you_ bein' dumb enough to just hand over those you love on the mere assumption people'll behave...not without showin' 'em your Colt, beforehand.”

  
As usual, Rick finds that this opinion, while brutal, is one he really does agree with—deep down, but not so _very_ deep, at all. Which would make him feel uncomfortable, if he let it...

  
...so he doesn't.

  
***

  
Phase three is about entrenchment, about making Woodbury as physically strong as possible. They've each learned their own lessons from Terminus's fall, Rick's being about general fortification and vigilance, while Philip's is about making sure that no one ever does to “his” people what he did to Gareth's. Both agree that on the whole, the campaign was an investment of the sort neither wants to make again—too far to go from home, too costly. Though it did at least yield some interesting information along with the final pre-population cap influx: the implication that there are communities Rick and the Governor've never even heard of who have apparently, nevertheless, somehow come to hear of _them._

  
“Can't use the tank anymore,” Rick tells him. “Ammunition runs out fast, it eats up too much fuel for not enough give-back, and if— _when_ —they come at us, we're gonna need it right here.”

  
Philip nods. “You're right. Mitch ain't gonna like it, though.”

  
“Yeah, well: fuck Mitch, is what I say.”

  
A barking laugh. “Hah! No thanks.”

  
As even Mitch admits, though, an ammunition-less tank certainly still has presence—you can crush people with it, after all. So obviously, a decision has to be made...and after a council “vote” whose outcome is pretty much predetermined, it gets placed permanently on the North Gate, gun kept going, a fixed turret intended to knock out any other approaching artillery. In the absence of other “experts,” Mitch thus becomes default upkeep program head: leads raids to gather ammo, picks a rotating roster of sentries who can do math under pressure, teaches 'em the tricks of non-computerized targeting. And that's good for him, too: gives him responsibility, an occasion to rise to. Pete's over the moon, and Rick himself is pleasantly surprised to see how quickly Mitch evolves, _stabilizes,_ once given the opportunity.

  
“Our boy's growin' up,” the Governor observes, sly, as Mitch passes by, only to draw a “Fuck you, _Dad,_ ” in return. And: “How come I gotta be Mom?” Rick demands, mock-offended, to which Phillip just grins.

  
“We're both Dad, from my angle,” he says. “Two Dads, with Lilly the Mom, and then there's Meghan, Tara, Alisha...Haley and that Evan of hers, even...”

  
“Stop it, man. You know I don't involve myself in that.”

  
“Well—you _could,_ that's all I'm sayin', now we got ourselves a little breathin' room to play with. If you wanted.”

  
Rick frankly double-takes. Asking, finally, after a long moment—

  
“...you mean it?”

  
A shrug. “Why not?”

  
Which seems like some sort of trap, at face value, but...apparently isn't, Rick gradually comes to accept: just one more strange case of Philip Blake being his own random self, doing something both unexpected—not exactly a stretch, from Rick's experience—and unexpectedly nice. So he takes himself over to Haley's place after work that evening, to spend some quality time with the boy he's only ever allowed himself to notice out of the corner of his eye, thus far: Evan Grimes, fat and happy and constantly babbling, who sports Haley's brown eyes and his absent father's curly, sandy hair. Plays a bunch of games he only vaguely remembers from the first time 'round, with Carl, then feels Haley's hand on his shoulder during one particular session of peekaboo, and realizes his eyes are suddenly far too full of tears to see exactly what it is he's doing that's making the kid laugh so damn hard.

  
That night, he comes “home” to find Lilly already asleep and Philip sitting up for him, nursing a cup of coffee. “Didn't find any more booze, 'case you're wonderin',” he says, showing it to Rick. “I'm bein' good—tryin', anyhow.”

  
“Noticed that,” Rick tells him, low, and sort of choked. 'Cause holy _Christ_ if he isn't abruptly right back on the verge of crying, yet again.

  
***

  
Unable to persuade anyone else to ferry him D.C.-wards, Eugene joins the wind farm project, another of Woodbury's energy initiatives. He gets them to scavenge turbines from various Georgia boat shops and manages to up their battery-charging process considerably, both in terms of time and capacity. Meanwhile, Rick and Lilly both work on Philip about scaling down the amenities, moving away from the Stepford Wives version of pre-apocalypse ambiance he's been so obsessed with maintaining, thus far: cold drinks and movie nights, all the mod cons. As Rick points out, now the gates have closed for good, it not like they really want to be saying “Come to Woodbury” anymore.

  
“Too bad we couldn't've built anything like a network of supportive relationships, out there,” he says one night, just spit-balling as all they lay in bed together, with Lilly's head nodding on his one shoulder and Philip's big hand light-spread across Rick's momentarily-slack lap. “I mean, shit... _everywhere_ can't be like Terminus, can it? Must be places we could help rebuild, trade with, count on to back us up, we ever get into trouble...”

  
Philip snickers. “Oh, Richard,” he says, half patronizing, yet wholly affectionate. “You really do always genuinely want to help people just to help 'em; never _my_ first impulse, sad t' say.”

  
“Uh huh, 'cept how you don't feel all _that_ sad about it, do you? If you're bein' anything like honest.”

  
“Anything like? Then...no.” Adding, as Rick elbows him in the ribs: “Ow! 'Cause it's just not practical, is why—c'mon now, I'm not makin' this stuff up. Open your heart to folks beyond the circle of family and friends, you open everything else as well, and that's when the real bastards start kickin' doors down; hard to hear, I know, but it just might be the reason we haven't found any other honest-to-God functional _towns_ out on survey, 'stead'a day-camps or murder factories.” A beat. “'Sides which, my old man would've said if you actually got something out of charity, reaped some sort of reward—emotional or otherwise—then you weren't doin' it right. Gotta hurt a bit to be real, or you'll never know if you actually meant it.”

  
“Since when d'you care 'bout livin' up to anything your old man used to say, exactly?” Rick shoots back.

  
“Yeah, well...I _still_ don't, mainly,” Philip growls, as Lilly gives a sleepy laugh, and swings 'round, folding them both back in.

  
***

  
Good days and nights, equal-happy, with everyone pulling their weights, or trying their level best to: give the best possible impression of being a fully-rounded human being, in Philip's case, while Rick and Lilly keep him steady and Meghan gets the cream; Evan and Haley as well, increasingly, to Rick's continued amazement. Two Dads, two Moms, two kids, and an almost infinitely-extended network of significant others—uncles, aunts, elders, friends. The daily grind, ground fine.

  
The calm, in other words. And, after that—

  
(just like Gareth promised)

  
—the storm.


	12. Chapter 12

Much like that one book by Stephen King, the downward plunge begins with a vile sort of streaming, hacking cold that first one Woodburyite succumbs to, then ten, then almost everybody else—superflu, Lilly calls it, by that point. Starts with a tickle in the throat, but ends with haemorrhage, suffocation, stroke—people die fast once it's really got its hooks in, choking on their own snot and blood. Probably something the Terminus refugees brought in with 'em, in retrospect, but it metastasizes far quicker than anyone can keep up with, and well-stocked as it is, they've soon run through almost all of the med center's antibiotic supplies, leaving them to stave the inevitable off with elderberry tea or emergency tracheotomies.

  
General panic starts to set in by halfway through week two, when previously undiagnosed people start going to bed feeling bum, dying at home overnight, turning, then staggering out into the street. Rick hears the initial screams when he, Tara and Alisha are preparing to run gun drills with fresh Neighbourhood Watch volunteers and hot-foots it outside, only to meet a small but determined pod with arms and teeth out, grabbing for whoever's handy. 

  
As Alisha yells at the mainly-frozen new recruits to _draw down, goddamnit,_ Tara drops and pops the closest two while Rick grabs his machete out and runs to spike a third, then uses its body to knock the next one down so he can curb-stomp its head. Looks up a second later, panting, to find a hastily-woken Philip at his side, shirtless and pissed off. Demanding, as he surveys the damage—

  
“The hell're these things comin' from, Richard? Breach in the walls we don't know about?”

  
Rick shakes his head. “Whole perimeter got swept just yesterday; signed off on the report myself. No sign of decay, let alone anything needs fixin'.”

  
“Then what's with all these biters? Look pretty fresh, to me...” A pause. “Oh, _crap._ ”

Which is right about when they both glance down, almost as one, and realize that each and every dead person who just got shanked is somebody they already know: that one Muslim gal (Salinah?), Richard Foster, Mrs Sullivan from the library—no more having to defend his moral decisions to _her,_ Rick thinks, queasily. Even Garjulio, reasonably young, fit and healthy, who was supposed to be up on the East Gate by six.

“That's not good,” Lilly says, from behind them, and Philip agrees. So Doc Stevens sets up a quarantine ward, admitting herself as a matter of course, while Lilly and Bob Stookey play masked-up doorkeepers, representing the living-for-now to the soon-to-be-dead, and vice versa. Governor calls a full town meeting for the first time in at least eight months, after which he, Rick and whoever of the usual suspects hasn't caught this things yet search every bolt-hole for the people too sick to show up, then escort them to triage—at gunpoint, if necessary. They lock the apartments of the sick and dead, painting an “x” 'cross the doors like it's Mediaeval Europe, and this is the damn Black Death.

The first to die are the town's oldest citizens, putting paid to Elberta McKnight and Mr Jacobsen from the bakery, plus almost all the remaining Carters, who never seemed as ancient as their patriarch, but were obviously getting up there all the same. Second wave, meanwhile, is composed of the youngest: first up is Lizzy Samuels, the girl Rick and the Governor “rescued” from Claimer Joe, who's never been quite right in the head since, followed by her little sister Mika, who also doesn't take long to succumb. Plus all sorts of others in between, some of whom get better, but most of whom just don't.

It's exactly as much of a crap-shoot who ends up with it as it seems to be who gets to walk away. Martinez, for example, never takes even one sick-day, while Nguyen dies a day and a half after whoopsing his cookies all over the mess-hall. When Sasha's brother Tyreese gets it, big as he is, Rick's sure that's the end of him, especially considering how he lost his arm—but he actually blazes through it, ends up nursing _her_ and manages to help her beat the thing down like a bad bar-fight, possibly 'cause he simply locks 'em both in their house and threatens to shoot anybody tries to come in.

Haven't been this many corpse-fires since the town first got cleared out, these many...Christ, must be six years ago by now, at the very least. And nobody really knows what more to do in order to stop things from spreading, 'sides from keep on loading, lighting, raking over the ashes.

“Could run a cull right now, nip it in the bud, while it's still controllable,” the Governor murmurs one night early on, maybe when he thinks Rick's already asleep—but Rick isn't, and sits up immediately, glaring at him. Shooting back, as he does: “Just what the hell d'you mean by _that,_ exactly? How all the infectious are in one place, so let's go in shootin'?”

“Was thinking of poison, actually,” Philip replies, coolly level. “Get Lilly out beforehand, and Bob; tell Doc Stevens to add a little something to the I.V.s, then walk away quick, and throw in a couple of gasoline bombs. Fire'd be a pretty tight burn 'long as we kept an eye on it, and then...”

“...what, we just sell it to everybody else as a happy fuckin' accident? _Jesus,_ Philip!”

“Oh, calm down, Richard: just thinkin' out loud, is all. I'm well aware it's not really an option.”

“'Cause it's evil, or just stupid?”

The Governor considers that a moment, silently. Before eventually replying, tone gone colder still: “Neither. That'd be 'cause for it to work the way I want it to, I should've just gone on ahead and _done_ it already, by now.”

And then, as Rick keeps on staring, he turns on his side, doubling up, to cough both long and loud into his pillow.

***

Week three sees the town's streets empty but for collection/disposal crews and Watch squads, all armed; almost everyone is symptomatic, Philip fighting it typically hard but still prone to wracking, spitting fits, equal-short of breath and temper. For Rick, on the other hand, it takes the form of fever, shakes and weird nosebleeds that quickly spike 'til he has a full-bore ischemic episode, seizing on their bathroom floor while Philip hugs him close, coughing like he's going to have a heart attack in between honest-to-Christ _screaming_ at God to _let him fuckin' go 'fore I hunt you down and gut you, you non-existent bastard!_

Contorted in a pool of his own mess, watching the world dim down and having some sort of weird superimposition-style flashback of two things at once: Morgan, telling him _that fever, man; her skin gave off heat like a furnace, just burned the life right out of her_ versus Milton Mamet, softly stammering his way through the sadly familiar bullet-points of Penny Blake's last moments...

 _All it took was a second; didn't know she was crying for a different reason than the usual 'til we got back inside. Then Philip, he just sat there from then on, held her all day, all night 'til she was gone, and after. Wouldn't let her go. I tried to give him my gun, but he said: you_ do, _first person I'm gonna use it on is YOU, then me. So...I didn't. Just sat there as well, watching. And an hour later, two at most..._

(she came back.)

Rick lies there replaying it in his mind, hoping with all his skipping, ticcing heart how Philip'll have the balls not to do the same, this time, to him; _praying_ he will, in fact, stated grudge 'gainst their mutual Creator notwithstanding. That he can trust him not to stuff him in some goddamn closet instead, all trussed up, and bring him out for bonding time whenever Lilly's elsewhere: comb his hair, stare into his filmy eyes, pull all his teeth so he can kiss him, on occasion. Or sit there listening to him moan hungrily, nodding his head like it's after-dinner conversation: _oh yeah, what's that? Uh huh?_ Very _interesting, yes. So glad I still have you 'round to ask about these civic matters, Richard, 'cause you always do have the absolute BEST ideas._

The fantasy takes Rick hard and fast, a popped-star photo-shoot flash, 'til his sight snuffs out like a wick. And abruptly, without any further warning at all—

—he's gone.

Darkness, absence, a long, black blink: the coma again, or something similar. But instead of three months it lasts barely the rest of the night, by Rick's guess later on, since right as the sun comes up next morning is when he finally manages to pry his eyes open: utterly exhausted, yet still feeling marginally better than he has in days even though bones ache as if he's been beaten all over with sticks, inside and out. 

Someone's taken precautions, however, for which Rick is duly grateful—there's a rag in his mouth, duct-taped over, his wrists bound with more of the same; on closer examination, that hard thing under the back of his skull proves half floor, half loose-clasped gun-butt. Above him, meanwhile, the Governor dozes with his head tipped back against the wall, mouth open and snoring slightly—so Rick claws the tape painfully off his lips, spits out the soaking cloth and hacks, raising himself unsteadily, only far enough to slump back against the bigger man's chest...

...much the same moment that Philip comes to with a jerk, whips the gun up, then freezes. Gazes down on Rick in disbelief a long moment more, eye all squinched and shuddering slightly with his finger on the trigger, and doesn't even start to relax 'til Rick raises his pinioned hands to touch one bearded cheek, finding it wet.

And: _Thank you too for not just stabbing me in the head while I was out,_ he thinks, almost drunkenly. _Thank you for waiting, to see...to see..._

(what comes next)

Rick clears his throat, swallows spit that tastes like ground glass. “Hey,” he says at last, hoarsely, with a ridiculous expenditure of effort. “'M...still here. See? S' don' be...takin' out a contract on th' Almighty, jus' yet.”

Philip shudders again, all over, like he's caught in a web, trying to tear himself free. Takes a longish moment. Then answers, voice growl-low and obviously tear-congested, not that Rick assumes he'd ever admit to it—

“Like I have _that_ sort'a cash on hand, dumb-ass.”

Not your classic snappy comeback, but it does make Rick laugh, though he stops short after the first bark, 'cause it hurts so much to do so. Then waits 'til he trusts himself to be able to form whole words again, and finally agrees: “Like anybody even _takes_ cash, anymore.”

“Hah. Well...there is that.”

A second later, the Governor looks down again, sniffing hard, face contorting. But Rick just ignores this shameful display, choosing instead to thread all ten fingers at once 'round those of Philip's gunless hand—both backwards and forwards—and fist them comfortingly, hard as his racked-up muscles will allow.

***

Over at the med centre, Lilly hasn't taken a break for days, working 'round the clock—but when Rick comes to bring her some food she won't let him inside, not even with a mask on. “How is it in there?” he wants to know. To which she just shakes her head, and asks, instead: “Where's Meghan?”

“Still with Tara, 'cause she hasn't shown any signs of it yet, fingers crossed. Got Alisha sittin' escort on 'em outside—well okay, more like guard, to make sure they don't break protocol—but she's starting to look pretty wiped out. Philip sees 'em every day, though; he's over there right now, playing chess with Meghan through the window.”

She gives a tapped-out laugh, more breath in it than tone. “Knew there was a point to getting that second set, besides for practice.”

“Says she wants to see you, of course.”

“What? Absolutely _not_! I'm counting on you to keep her away, Rick, at all costs. Way things're going now, I frankly don't know if any of us're gonna be here, come morning.”

“Has to be _something_ we can do, though—”

“At this point? More antibiotics, that's about the only thing _might_ help, and Doc Stevens isn't all too sure about that either, 'specially since I know we've already looted every hospital in the area...”

“Then we'll go further. Still got fuel enough, 'cause I know damn well Philip's been stockpilin' it, 'case we ever have to burn this whole place down around ourselves—” She gives him a double-take, but he just sighs. “Yeah, don't ask.” And it's only then it occurs to him, shamefully late, to ask: "But if it's _that_ bad then maybe I should go get Haley and Evan too, put 'em in with Tara and Meghan, before..."

Lilly's eye soften. “Oh Rick, I'm so sorry. I honestly thought you already knew.”

Rick swallows, mouth suddenly gone dry. “Already knew what?” he forces himself to ask.

“...how they've been here since last night."

A blow to the chest, from the inside; sends every bit of air he still possesses huffing out, making him want to bend over, a struggle just to keep upright. Finds himself thinking about Evan, that sturdy, happy little boy, barely toddling but always laughing, seen mostly from afar. How the time he actually got to _have_ with him hurts more in context, remembering all the times he made himself look the other way just to soothe the Governor's ego...

 _I_ _f he dies, if Haley dies. If they_ both _die, I'm damn well gonna—_

(—do WHAT, Rick Grimes? a mean little voice inquires, at his inner ear; not Philip's, for once, or Shane's. Not even Michonne's. Just...somebody, somewhere, wondering what-all he has in mind and who he's fixed to turn it against. Who it is he even holds responsible for _any_ of the shit that regularly piles up, in strictest truth, above and beyond himself.)

“Don't _know,_ ” he whispers to himself, finally, feeling something deep inside him turn over, like a revved car. Then gets up, and dusts himself off, and goes to find Philip—hauls him away from checking Meghan's king and drags him down the street to the survey office, where he grabs a map of the surrounding thirty-mile area and throws it down, studying it.

Philip's looking outside, back at the med centre, eye narrowed. “Lilly okay?” Rick nods. “How many people we got in there right now, you think?”

“Lilly said thirty-two, as of this morning. Was forty last night, but...”

“Should've burnt that place down when I had the chance.”

“Now, I _know_ you don't mean that.”

“Don't I?” Philip gives a bitter chuckle, which Rick chooses to ignore, concentrating on the task at hand: finds what he's after, then taps the paper, triumphantly. “Here! See this? Veterinary college, back up near that horse farm. We gather up everybody's not sick, go see what they got—”

“Animal drugs?”

“ _Mammal_ drugs, same damn difference. Respiratory system ain't gonna know they were meant for pigs, or sheep.” A pause. “And speakin' of which...”

“Yeah, don't worry: I had Martinez, Shumpert and Pete slaughter off all the livestock yesterday, to prevent species jumping.”

“Without tellin' me?” Philip shrugs. “What a waste.”

“We have to minimize damage, Richard; gotta get out of this with a least some of our strength, or we're dead in the water. I already sent word to the outliers at the wind farm, told 'em to hole up and not come home 'til we say different. Just hope that Eugene's got the sense to protect himself, bad hair and all, 'cause as of right now he's the only scientist we've got left, not just the best.”

 _Since Milton blew himself up, you mean?_ Rick thinks, but doesn't say.

They grab Martinez, Pete Dolgen and Alisha, get the North Gate cranked open, and make it over there just as the sun's starting to go down. It's heavy going there for a few minutes—every student they had seems to've either chosen to die there or gravitated back, once dead—but the 50-caliber mainly takes care of that, and otherwise, the place is a goldmine. They leave with backpacks laden, head-stomping their way 'cross a courtyard full of limbless biters, and drive carefully back to Woodbury, arriving just before dawn.

Philip pounds on the med centre door. “Lilly!” he yells. “Got your antibiotics right here, honey, special delivery...”

...which is when the door explodes outwards, releasing a horde of new-made dead.

***

In his debrief, Bob Stookey will explain things this way. He'll trace the tide's turn to when Robbie, that sweet little no-last-name kid Barbara Stern adopted after finding him on the road, must've died in her arms while they were both asleep, since when Bob and Lilly walked in during early morning bed-checks he'd already taken a big enough chunk out of her neck to kill her and was still clung there like some horrible koala, munching away, even as she made similarly short work of her room-mate.

So Bob yanked the kid free, breaking his skull against the wall while Lilly popped Barbara in the head, but the commotion started a riot; sick people began running and falling, scrambling over each other in their haste to escape, only to immediately blunder across those other patients who'd died without being dealt with. Then Doc Stevens pulled the fire alarm, which brought a not-too-helpful influx, and things only got worse from there.

Somewhere in the commotion, Rick and the Governor later discover, Meghan and Tara must have come running and got separated—Tara ended up outside while Meghan slipped in to help her Mom, only to get barricaded into a supply closet: just her, Lilly, Haley and poor Evan, already on the verge of arresting after his air'd been cut off by mucus. Since then, they've just sat there the whole time listening to the biters rage with gun and bows drawn, while Evan's growling corpse struggles inside the locked transplant cooler they used for his coffin.

But as Philip kills his way through the crowd, Meghan recognizes his berserker roar and cries out for him. So he carves a path to the closet and stands there like some angel with a flaming Bowie knife, keeping Rick safe 'til he can knock the door off its hinges with a fire-axe handle.

The reunion is bittersweet, to say the least. Haley ends up re-killing her own baby as Martinez holds Rick back, on Philip's orders; “I can do this, so _let_ me,” she tells him, at which point he sags, nodding. Then she throws herself back into the fighting, eventually resurfacing in the aftermath—comes wobbling down the street towards Rick with a weird smile on her face, escorted by that new girl Karen, only to flop down boneless at his feet, where he suddenly sees she's sporting so many bites they've turned her favourite cheerful yellow t-shirt orange.

“Oh, God,” Rick blurts out, voice cracked like a thrown plate. But: “No, no,” she replies, smile sliding fast to rictus. “Not your fault, none've it. I'm—so glad—you got to know him, finally—”

Despairing: “Haley, _Christ_...”

“Did it for him, 'n' y'let me,” she whispers, “so thanks for that. But now you do me, Rick, all right? Please.”

“Oh, honey, please. I can't, I just...I can't...”

“Yes y'can, Rick. I...trust you.”

Philip's standing there too, somewhere in the background, with Lilly and Meghan behind him; Tara has her arms 'round Alisha, Smith & Wesson drooping, face buried in her chest. And Rick, he goes down on one knee like he's about to propose—leans his forehead against Haley's, listening to her pant, pain run through them both like some skewer, sewing a piece of her broken heart forever to his. One hand ends up on her stomach, where Evan once swum, while the other raises his Colt.

“I'm sorry,” he says, not so much a lie as just useless, like always. Makes himself dip to kiss her bloody mouth 'til their tongues touch, not allowing himself the luxury of worrying over potential infection; hell, they all carry the germ, don't they? Mortality's seed, Eden's crop: the resurrection but not the life, not really. Always did, and will. 

_Oh, this sorrowful goddamn world._

Rick moves back again, then, for the very last time. And waits for Haley close her eyes, long as that takes, before he pulls the trigger.


	13. Chapter 13

Grief is an ocean that never quite drowns you. You bob up and down, can't find purchase, swallow salt, like you're floating in your own tears—start to suffocate, then stop, then start again. Nothing's ever resolved. Nothing's ever _over._

  
In the weeks to come, Rick sees Haley and Evan everywhere, same way he used to see Lori, Carl and Shane, after he first came back from the prison: out the corner of his eye, or off in the distance; close enough to startle 'til he focuses in on 'em, only to have them quickly resolve into somebody else. And what's worst is how even now, at the very deepest point of his own sorrow, he still feels like he doesn't really have the right to mourn for 'em at all.

  
Can't stay nearby the Governor 'til this process is done with, so Rick moves out of their apartment and back into the unit that once was “his,” where (so long ago) he first heard the news of Haley's pregnancy, then debated it out with only Shane's parrot-ghost for company. Lilly he can trust to accept his decision, at least, to honor it; thinks she understands his reasoning, though she doesn't, not entirely. But he does spend a few days waiting for Philip to corner him somewhere—the former med center's wreck, as it turns out, fittingly enough—so he can finally turn on him, one hand on his gun-butt, and snarl: “Just stay the fuck back, thank you kindly; I'm grievin', and we both know people in mourning do pretty odd shit. Wouldn't want to deprive Woodbury of its leader by accident, or anything.”

  
Philip huffs. “'Cause you'd much rather do it on purpose?” Then continues, when Rick doesn't reply: “Might as well've, you know—I _turn_ to you in times like these, same's in any other, so come home, Richard. You're missed.”

  
“Don't do that.”

  
“Do what?”

  
“Make it all about you, for once. Like every other damn thing.”

  
This last comes out heavy, all that previous spurt of anger abruptly drained dry. Which is probably what stops Philip from doing what Rick's already braced himself to expect—rock back on his heels, strike a wounded party pose, maybe even snap: _oh yeah, since it's not like_ I _'d know anything 'bout what losin' a child feels like..._ Instead, he just crosses his arms, worries at his lip a moment; lets himself stay silent while considering what to say next, allowing Rick the exact same privilege. Until he replies, finally:

  
“Well...you're right, of course, 'cause it's not. Not about either of us, come to that: just Haley and Evan, with nothing to be done about it, no matter how we might wish it could be. So I'm not gonna offer to let you beat me down or claim it's all my fault, though I know full well the role I played in makin' things harder than they had to be, and I _was_ tryin'...” He stops again, sighs. “Doesn't matter. What I'm thinkin' of here's the town, which needs us both, together. Like always.”

  
“And I'll be there, for them—always have been, haven't I? But _you_ , I need to not be 'round for a while, at least behind the scenes; can't change that, not even if I wanted to. So if you got any sort of respect for me at all left in that thing you call a heart, you better just accept it.”

  
“...fair enough. Still, when you're ready—”

  
But: “That means don't _talk_ to me about it anymore, either, 'til I tell you you can,” Rick snaps, throwing up his hands, in part to keep from forming fists. And walks away quick, 'fore he finds himself doing anything else he'll regret.

  
So it goes, for almost a month. Rick feels numb, detached, bruised; sometimes he catches himself staring off into space, observing himself from the outside, like he's watching a film. Wonders how best to explain that particular reference to the few Woodbury babies who still survive, once they're old enough to ask. But then again, he'll be long dead by then, probably—him and Philip too, in all likelihood. So it'll fall to intemediate-generation folk like Meghan instead, or like Carl...

  
(Carl, Carl. Were his eyes blue, or brown? Blue, Rick's almost sure. Had Lori's hair, definitely, and her side of the family's height. If he was alive he'd be...what, sixteen? Seventeen?)

  
(He can't remember what the boy's birthday was, anymore; can't remember Evan's either, so that fits. Or his own, for that matter.)

  
 _Woodbury rebuilds,_ the Governor likes to say. _It's what we're best at._ And they do, though slower than ever before, not least because their recently-capped population's been so violently chopped in half—a tentative general contraction, town's perimeters moving inwards, becoming less of the gated community Gareth mockingly accused them of being and more of an armed camp. Have no stores anymore, or not a lot, beyond that warehouse full of “bug-out” packs Philip doesn't want touched 'til they're on the legitimate edge of starvation, so it's right on back to raiding and survey again, with a quarter of their old efficiency. In terms of an escape route for further disasters, there's two buses still gassed up and ready to go, parked near an easily-bazookaed part of the perimeter, with the rest of the fuel stores re-distributed yet again, stockpiled at various load-bearing posts around town; Governor thinks Rick doesn't know, but he does. Just doesn't see the point in arguing about it.

  
Up on the East Gate as dawn breaks, two weeks later, Rick finds himself staring at his hands like they're somebody else's. Thinks he can see something moving at the nearest tree-line through the gaps between his fingers, though he doesn't know what it could be, or if it's even there, at all—so he doesn't mention it to the sentries standing next to him, even though one has a sniper's scope, and could find out. Doesn't want to risk looking stupid, or crazy.

  
He'll wish to hell he made a different call later on, like with so much else.

  
***

  
In the aftermath of the med center's fall, Doc Stevens finally joins the list of casualties, making Lilly the senior medical professional in town, with Bob Stookey—ostensibly more experienced, but still traumatized from his experiences on Terminus's killing floor—backing her up: a hard row to hoe at the best of times, which these very much are not. Which is why Rick isn't all that surprised when she comes to see him at last, at his new/old place, a housewarming gift of fresh vegetables in one hand, her figurative heart in the other.

  
“We want you to come back, Rick,” she says, simply. “Me, Meghan...Philip, not that he'd say it, given he thinks you don't want to hear. All of us.”

  
Rick nods, surprised a bit himself by how bitter a note slips into the next question, when he asks it. “'Cause I'm _missed,_ right?”

  
“You are, yes. We all feel that way.”

  
“That what he said to tell me?”

  
“No, of course not. He doesn't even know I'm here.”

  
“Think so, huh? Sort of like I thought he didn't have any booze left, after Terminus...or trusted him not to lie about it, more like. Which in retrospect seems pretty damn stupid, now I come to think.”

  
She shoots him a look, here, and sighs. “Look, I _know_ there's something between you two you've neither seen fit to fill me in on, at least not yet—but I'm not lying when I say we all want you there. Meghan still has nightmares every night, and Tara can't help her, so she's sleeping on our couch; Philip does his best, but she needs things back the way they were.”

  
“They'll never be that, Lilly. Not ever again.”

  
“Oh, for Christ's sake! I _know,_ but...” She breaks off, sighing again, twice as hard this time. “You didn't _want_ her to think you were part of her family, then you shouldn't've gone along with the Governor trying to make out like you were, right from the start. But you did, and now you're stuck with her, or rather, she's stuck with you—you, him, me, all three of us. Take that anyhow you want.”

  
Rick scoffs at that, though gently. “Nice try, Lilly, but we both know Meghan's all about Philip. Can't think she even knows I'm gone, when she barely notices I'm there.”

  
“She does love him, that's true. But he loves _you._ ”

  
“Wants me, maybe.”

  
“Wants, needs, whatever! I don't see there's all too much difference, to him—some people have a limited emotional vocabulary, but that doesn't make them monsters.”

  
 _Not_ that, _no,_ Rick thinks. But can't say that, obviously, so he stands there silent a bit too long, trying to work out his next sentence—enough to spark her slow-simmering impatience, make her throw the bag of greens down and turn for the door again.

  
 _Oh, fuck ME._

  
“Lilly, wait,” he calls out, pausing again, when she does. Then tells her, suddenly tired beyond all human measure: “Look, I'm sorry, all right? Really. It's not your fault, so I got no damn right to take things out on you 'cause the Governor and me got...issues. It's just...”

  
“—just _what,_ Rick? Your fault? His?”

  
“Both of ours, you want the plain truth.”

  
“And what's that mean, exactly?” He doesn't answer—can't—so she shakes her head. “You're really starting to worry me, Rick, with all this. I say that as a friend.”

  
And: _Well, sure don't want to do_ that, Rick knows, helpless.

  
But what is he supposed to say here, anyhow, he really wanted to warn her off? _Man's not who we thought he was, Lilly; hell, his name's not even Philip._ For Christ's sakes, Rick already _knew_ the Governor was a liar when he first let her get involved with him, yet somehow neglected to mention that small fact: fake politician with a gun and a knife, prone to bad impulse decisions under pressure, unstable and unrepentant. Just went ahead and told her it'd all be fine so long's they stuck to the rules, not really knowing what those rules might be—because it was easier for Rick to finally have somebody else stuck in the same trap he'd been occupying, essentially. For him to no longer have to look forward to forever steering the S.S. Philip/Brian Blake all by his lonesome.

  
 _Tells me he wants to be better than he is, for Meghan; you and me, too, supposedly. And I don't think that's a total lie, or at least not an intentional one. Think he really does mean these things, at the time that he says them..._

  
But still, what does that count for, in the long run? What _can_ it?

  
Rick spent three years finding out what the Governor was capable of, then agreed to keep it to himself in return for power, hoping he'd make more of a difference here than he would've elsewhere: a devil's bargain, if there ever was one. So he shouldn't be all too surprised to've so late found out how damnation's a catching proposition, he supposes—a sexually transmitted disease—but somewhat is anyhow, he finds. Never-the-goddamn-less.

  
“It's that I _care_ for you, is all,” Rick says, at last, extra-carefully. “You and Meghan, too, and Tara. Think y'all deserve better, in this world.”

  
Now it's her turn to nod, giving him that diagnostic look once more, sympathetic yet wary. “And what is it you think _you_ deserve, Rick?” she asks. To which he replies, without hesitation—

  
“Exactly what I've already got. And not one single thing more.”

  
***

  
After, looking back, Rick'll realize this “first” time celebrating his own decision to move back in with Lilly and the Governor is actually the last time he'll be together with either of them. Never again will they form this well-oiled flesh machine, so much more than its component parts; never again will they play out all the familiar notes, revelling in the many ways they've broken each other in.

  
Out in the living room, Meghan's so fast asleep her breathing barely registers, which is a mercy. Means they don't have to worry over what she might or might not be hearing, and can concentrate fully on the task at hand, instead: squirm on the bed like a pile of snakes, trading kisses and bites; curl close enough to crack each other open, slip inside.

One minute Lilly's got Philip inside her and Rick down between her legs, licking her 'til she fetches up with a shout, Philip following a second after...and then Rick's already rolling him over, pressing himself in while the Governor's still slack and happy enough to not even curse against the sting and biting his shoulder 'til it marks in a way that won't fade for days: punishment as reminder, a wordless way of saying _this is what you want, huh, bad enough to press on her to press_ me _? Then THIS is what you get._

  
Takes a moment or two to get back up to speed, even for somebody of Philip's stamina. But soon enough he's raised himself on hands and knees, panting, growling. Swearing, in return: “Oh, Richard. 'M gonna fuck you so hard you're gonna walk more bowlegged than usual, like for a damn week. Make you come 'til you black out, how's about that?”

  
“Easy to say,” Rick replies, feeling him gasp as Lilly snakes her deft little nurse-practitioner's hand underneath and fists him 'til he's hard once more, drooling, 'til he clamps down so hard he brings Rick on far faster than he ever expected to—makes him slump, barking, vision turning red. And before he knows it, more time must've gone by than he thought, 'cause it's like they've changed places, with a few small differences: now Rick's underneath, sweaty back rucking the sheets, with Philip dipping to wipe his forehead on Rick's beard and laughing at the way it feels as his dick pumps ever harder deep down inside, hitting that spot like a drill just to make Rick moan a bit, over and over again.

Rolling his eyes up past Lilly's admiring face, only to catch a glimpse of somebody's shadow taking shape in the corner, over her shoulder—Shane, or the echo of him at least, shaking his head and smirking, like it's all the punchline to some dirty joke. Granted, Rick only gets a look at him just the once, before strenuously looking elsewhere, but he's finding it hard to ignore entirely.

  
“What're you lookin' at?” Philip demands, tracing his sight-line, even as he keeps the exact same steady, excruciating pace.

  
“Nothing. _Nothing._ ”

  
“Yeah? Well, don't look at 'nothing.' it's upsettin' you so much; look at me, just at me. You hear me, Richard? Look _here._ ” He turns Rick's face to him bodily, one hand spanning Rick's jaw and kisses him so fierce it pops his own lip open, then growls it again, right in Rick's ear: “ _Here,_ at me, just at me. Like we're the only ones, in this whole world. Like you're _mine,_ and no-damn-body else's.”

  
“Not gonna say that, ever. _Never_ gonna—”

  
Philip laughs at this foolish display of rebellion, a lion's coughing snarl. And: “Oh, believe you me, you won't ever _have_ to,” he shoots back, smugly, thrusting deep enough to bruise them both and holding Rick's gaze 'til he finally breaks it by force, turns his head away with a wrench, a groan, and comes between them at the same time, hot and bitter, like his dick's spitting nails.

  
Yet hearing the unspoken words in his head as he does nonetheless, clear as though projected: _'Cause we both know_ that _good and well already, don't we?_

  
Guess they do, goddamnit.

  
***

  
The next day, Rick's tracking Philip and Meghan through the woods with his Colt out, looking for anything that's alive and can be taken down with either that, an arrow or a silenced Beretta, when a figure suddenly emerges from the gloom. He's a scar-faced stranger armed with an AK-17, most of one cheek crimped in a permanent sneer, like it's been burnt: tall and lanky, with longish, flyaway brown hair, wearing a worn-ragged Kings County sheriff's hat.

“Hey, _Governor,_ ” the kid says, without preamble, barrel trained at Philip's chest. “See you got yourself another daughter, huh? Man, they must just be lettin' _any_ motherfucker adopt, these days. One damn apocalypse, and all the standards go out the window.”

  
Philip draws back just a touch, squinting—tries to make Meghan get behind him, but she just raises her bow in turn and the kid laughs at the sight, a bitter, unlovely guffaw. And: “ _Carl?_ ” Rick blurts out, from further back, almost dropping his gun.

  
The kid's— _Carl_ 's—eyes flick over automatically, fastening on Rick, widening like he's been shot; shudders all over, body punch-rocked, and his mouth falls about as open as it possibly can, damage aside. As his eyebrows hike, Rick can see Lori writ large in every line him, her frustrated hope all but indistinguishable from disappointed rage, as ever—though there's a good deal of the latter here, too: five barren, awful years of mourning over nothing's worth, at the absolute least.

  
“ _Dad?_ ” he whispers, half ecstatic and wholly horrified, like he'd do _anything_ not to have to believe it. And that, right there...

  
...that's when things fall _permanently_ to shit.


	14. Chapter 14

Lilly looks at them like they're both insane, for which Rick frankly doesn't blame her. Asking, yet again: “Meghan's _where,_ if she's not with you?”

  
Philip glances over at Rick for support, face twisting when Rick doesn't quite meet his eyes. And: “I don't _know,_ ” he replies, voice gravelly with frustration. “We...met somebody in the woods, there was a face-off, and he...he took her, honey.”

  
“Don't you _dare_ call me that, not now, when you just told me you somehow managed to _lose_ my only child!” To Rick, meanwhile: “'Somebody'—like who, 'somebody'? Give me an answer here, for God's sake.”

  
Rick sighs. “It was my son, Carl. Had a gun with him, knocked the bow out of her hands, put it to her head. We couldn't do anything.”

  
“Couldn't DO anything, uh huh, not either of you, the two most dangerous men I know; yeah, that's likely. So you tell me, Rick: why do I find that hard to believe?”

  
“Um, I...” He pauses, just a second, before agreeing: "...it _is_ pretty unbelievable, true enough, so. Can't blame you for that.”

  
“Oh, well—that's really big of you, I feel a _lot_ better! Jesus _fucking_ Christ!”

  
She's shaking now, Tara hugging her from behind, trying to comfort her even as she glares daggers over Lilly's shoulder. Beside Rick, Philip blows out, bares his teeth; fairly goes red in the face from the sheer amount of effort it's obviously taking for him not to simply blurt out _yeah, well—might've actually been able to stop him, if Richard here hadn't had_ his _gun to my head, at the time..._

  
Remembering that very moment, as he knows the Governor must be doing, albeit from a different angle. Carl lunging forward to grab Meghan's bow and twist, other hand digging deep in her hair, knotting it 'til she yelled; Philip's answering cry, his one eye panicked, begging Carl to _don't hurt my little girl,_ please. And Carl just snarling back at him, barrel already pressed to her temple: _Not YOUR little girl, though, is she? Everybody knows that. 'Cause_ your _little girl's dead._

  
Would've been enough to stop him short even a few years back, but they're well beyond all that now. Which is why Philip jerked his own gun back up instead, growling out: Fine, _then—might not be my daughter, but she's_ mine, _all the same! Which's why, you don't let her go, I'm gonna—_

  
Stop right there, it turned out, mid-thought, as he felt the cold steel of Rick's Colt up under his chin, hammer cocking back. Hearing Rick promise, in his turn:

  
 _Need to put the gun down, right damn now, 'cause if you even TRY to shoot my boy then I will end you where you stand..._ Brian.

  
Unaware just what had the Governor suddenly so transfixed, Meghan took advantage of the lull to stamp hard down on Carl's instep and elbow him in the ribs, same way Rick'd taught her to. But she didn't manage to break his hold even then, what with Carl hanging on like grim death, and he drew her away, back into the trees—gaze never leaving Rick's the whole time, right up until they both disappeared. And Philip kept on staring down at him sidelong, caught someplace halfway between horror and disbelief, a shock that wasn't shock at all, but simple confirmation.

  
 _Damn well KNEW I must've told you,_ was all he said, at last. _Now get that out of my face, 'fore I beat your tiny psycho ass to death._

  
“Carl,” Lilly repeats, back in the present. “The kid from the photo?” Rick nods again. “But—you said he was dead.”

  
“Said I didn't _know_ if he was, or even where to find him,” Rick corrects. “And...turns out he's alive, but not my wife, or my friend; Carl's had no one to look after him all this time but the same man who killed 'em both, some asshole with a private army named Negan who goes 'round extorting goods and services from communities can't defend 'emselves from the dead, or him.”

  
“Okay, well...no, I still don't understand. What would _your_ son want with _my_ daughter?”

  
Philip snorts. “Got nothin' to do either of you, Lilly. It's 'cause he hates _me,_ wants to hurt _me,_ and she was the easiest way to do it.”

  
She turns on him then, all up in his face the way Rick once got five years back, having just found Shane down in the gladiator pit fighting what was left of Merle Dixon while the Governor's people hooted and hollered, like it was the damn MMA championships—and just like then, it rocks him back a bit further than most might assume it would, they didn't know him well enough to predict his reactions. 'Cause he's a fearless man, Philip Blake, where personal bodily harm is concerned; die for his pride as much as for his people, any damn day. But when all's said and done, he really does need the few he thinks he loves to at least _act_ like they feel the same way, or he'll fall apart with one good push.

  
Should probably scare him, Rick thinks, that he even knows this. Let alone that he's prepared _use_ it, things only get bad enough.

  
“So what the hell did you _do_ to this young man, exactly?” Lilly demands, in a voice like July turned to January. “And Philip, if you try to tell me it's 'complicated' then I swear to fucking God, I will put your other eye out with my thumb.”

  
The Governor swallows, visibly. Takes a moment. Then answers, at last, with a certain amount of bruised dignity yet surprisingly little bullshit—

  
“—back when I first found your camp and brought you in, mainly 'cause I wanted Mitch and his tank, Rick'd just found out his family was alive over at the prison, and he wanted to leave, to be with 'em. But I made him stay: told him he had to or I'd never stop huntin' him down, kill everybody he ever touched from then on, for the grand crime of not bein' me. And Carl got the idea I'd killed him, 'cause what else would ever keep his Daddy from comin' back? Had five years to think on that, while more and more bad shit happened to him; five years of believin' I was the Devil incarnate, and if he could only get rid of _me_ , the whole world'd be a better place. So Carl came here to kill me, and when he saw Rick was still alive, that he'd been here the whole damn time, he was...upset. Grabbed Meghan 'cause she was the first thing that came to hand, to pay us both back." A beat. "Which makes it all my fault, and I'm sorry.”

(Wow. _That_ was...unexpected.)

  
Lilly's eyes switch to Rick. “Is this true?” she asks.

  
“More or less.” Adding, as she slumps once more, overtaken by sorrow: “'Cept for it actually bein' _me_ who told folks to tell Carl I was dead, 'cause I wanted...hell, I don't know; to save him pain, I guess. And Christ, did _that_ backfire.”

  
Tara's jaw falls open and she gives Rick a look like poison, harsh enough it definitely means he's no longer her favourite queer lawkeeper role model. “You two are some damn pieces of work!” she blurts, to which Rick merely nods, while Philip doen't even bother trying to argue the point; picks up his walkie instead, which just gave a squeal of static containing the heavily-deformed word _Governor,_ and says: “This's him, didn't get that last part. Mitch, that you? Come back.”

  
“Yeah, 's me, Gov. We got something at the North Gate, urgent, come back!”

  
“What is it, come back?”

  
“Uh...kinda need to see it for yourself, I think. Come back.”

  
***

  
So: Turns out this guy Negan does exist, and really does have an army. Rick can see them massing on the hoizon, as far back as the tree-line—vehicles of all sorts, all armed; men with guns, edged weapons, bows, in makeshift biter-killing armor. There's one van advancing, almost within yelling range, white flag at negligent half-mast—Negan himself, maybe, given Rick can spot Carl up on top even from this distance, manning a 50-caliber that looks considerably more ammunition-stocked than Woodbury's.

Doesn't see Meghan anywhere but there wouldn't be much point to not bringing her along at all, he'll want to use her as a game-piece, a threat—

  
“Mitch, you in there?” The Governor mumurs into his walkie, beside Rick. “Come back.”

  
A crackle. “That's right,” Mitch answers, sounding strained. “Orders? Come back.”

“Standing orders, come back.”

  
“Yessir; hoo-rah.”

  
“Hoo-rah,” Philip agrees, without irony, like he's ever been anyplace closer to even Mitch's version of the Marines than watching _The Green Berets_ on TV.

  
“In there”'s code for the tank, when the Governor thinks somebody might be listening. If Rick remembers right, it's still got maybe five shots left, plus about a mile's worth of fuel—and Pete Dolgen seems to know it, sick as he looks, standing there next to Alisha. Got Tyreese further back, on the ground in the town square, with Sasha and Bob Stookey; Rick managed to grab the latter as they walked here, told him to keep Tara and Lilly busy mobilizing folks, knocking up apartments and giving occupants the standard _Grab Your Shit, It's Time To Leave_ speech they've been rehearsing since they first put the walls up. All know to meet at the buses, so that's taken care of, but there's a whole lot of other moving parts to think about, if they're planning to pull out completely...

  
(Jesus, they haven't covered a quarter of this stuff in council. Haven't even _had_ any meetings recently, for that matter, in what feels like a month.)

  
“That's a hundred guys, at the least,” Rick tells the Governor, out the corner of his mouth. “We can't fight that. Don't have the numbers anymore, let alone the means.”

  
Similarly low: “I'm well aware of both those facts, Richard, thank you.”

  
“All right. Got a plan?”

  
“Not yet. You?”

  
“Run?”

  
“Sure, obviously. Run and _get away,_ though...that's gonna be harder.” A beat. “Plus—”

  
“—plus Meghan, I know. And Carl.”

  
“Carl's what got us into this, in the first damn place.”

  
“ _You_ 're what got us into this, and me, so take some responsibility, goddamnit. Or were you just lyin' again, when you said you were sorry?”

  
Philip sets his jaw. Grits out, between his teeth: “Don't have time for family fuckin' counselling right about now, Richard. Need to find out what this asshole wants, keep him talkin' while we make sure as many of us get out as possible, 'fore he figures out we're shinin' him on...”

  
“Not even gonna consider his offer, huh?”

  
“Don't recall that worked out all too well for your man Shane, so—no.”

  
It's like a jab to the pit of the stomach, as Rick's brain skitters back to what Carl yelled at him in the woods, voice wobbling shamefully: _You were_ here, _all this time—the whole time? I thought—Michonne said...came here to kill_ that _asshole, for killing YOU. But you're alive, with him._ Shook his head, crimped mouth crumpling, like he wanted to puke. _With_ him, _Dad!_

  
 _Carl, just listen, son...please..._

  
_Fuck_ you, _I will! People tell_ jokes _'bout him 'n' you, the Governor and his boyfriend, you know that? Officer fuckin' Friendly. And Shane died thinkin' you were a good guy, his damn brother—died doin' what he thought YOU would, you were only there! Stood up against Negan and got his head beat in for it, 'til the brains came out his ears...and Mom, Jesus, Mom!_

_What happened to her? Tell me._

_After Shane died and Hilltop couldn't pay their share, Negan took her in trade, so I got myself into one of his trucks and went too; killed the guys in back with my gun, on silence, then I grabbed an AK—_ this _one, as it happens—and got ten more when they drove into Sanctuary and opened the doors, 'fore somebody finally clocked me from behind. Woke up with Negan standin' over me, big smile on his face. Said I scared him, and I guess he_ liked _that, 'cause from then on I was in, a Savior, at thirteen fuckin' years old...though he did have to do THIS to me, right? In public, with a hot iron. Just so's everybody knew I'd been punished, put in my place, broke to the collar like some goddamn junkyard dog..._

  
Pointing at his face, then: the scar curling his lip, scoring his cheek, stark and rough. Rick remembers feeling his free hand fist at the sight like he wanted to punch this Negan guy straight through the chest, get his heart in his hand and _squeeze_ —

  
—and that was before he even knew how things ended up, with Lori, too. Before...

  
(But he can't think about that, not right now; can't _allow_ himself to, more like. Not and get through the next few minutes without doing something _ruinously_ stupid.)

  
'Cause here he is, Negan, getting out of the van, in the damn flesh: wide-set, jovial, florid. Got a barroom bully's too-happy face and a thick crop of dark hair, grinning like some asshole football coach, kind tells his players to always go for the worst sort of break in a scrum, just so they can rack up points.

  
And: “Hey!” he calls up to them both, waving, grinning. “Now, let me guess: tall, one eye, Bowie knife— _you_ 'd be the Governor, which'd make you Officer Friendly, right? Who, I only now come to find out, also happens to be Carl Grimes's Dad.” Rick just stares him down, stone-faced, but Negan nods all the same, like he expected as much. “Yeah, I heard a whole damn lot about _you,_ hoss, last five or so years; get your son in his cups and it's Rick Grimes hagiography time, pretty much all the way down...mmm, well. Up 'til today, that is.”

  
Rick can't quite keep himself from flushing at that, just a bit. But Philip simply crosses his arms and scowls, refusing to play along. 

“You got something of mine, I think,” he calls down. “That's why you're here, right? So bring her on out, and let's start negotiating.”

  
Negan cocks a brow. “'Something of yours'...oh yeah, right! You mean little miss Meghan, don't you? The _war-prize._ Y'know, when I heard Carl'd broken ranks this morning, have to tell you, I truly didn't expect to see him again, like ever. 'Cause he hates the hell out of _my_ ass, 'cause of what ended up happening with poor Mrs Grimes...that'd be your late wife, Officer.” Throws a smirk back Carl's way, then, and gets an equal-load of nothing in return, which makes him chuckle. “Oh yeah, I can _definitely_ see the resemblance now, beard or no beard! You Grimeses gotta have the best poker faces in all've Georgia.” To Philip, meanwhile: “That why you still keep Rick here around, _Philip,_ even now he's gettin' just a tad long in the tooth?”

  
“I don't have to explain myself to you.”

  
“Nope. Don't have to explain yourself to anybody, and you really do _not,_ do ya? I mean, judging by the evidence.” He strolls a bit further towards the wall, pushing firing distance. “Yeah, Carl hates me but he hates you worse, Gov—or _did,_ anyhow. Told me all about your wild years, that thing with the zombie cockfights, the tank full'a heads: seriously sick shit, for a guy used to work white collar. I thought, _man, I really gotta MEET this dude one day!_ ” Back to Rick: “Admired YOUR work too, even without really puttin' the right name to it—from afar, of course, 'til now. Way you dealt with those worthless Claimer assholes, for example: frontier justice at its finest. Take my hat off to you, if I had a hat.”

  
Rick: “There a point to any of this, or do you just like to hear yourself talk?”

  
Negan laughs out loud. “Good one! Well, I _do_ like to monologue, that's fair enough. But here's the thing, guys: when we got to Terminus recently, to pick up our usual tribute, it looked...kind'a different, y'know? Like the wall was knocked in, whole place was full of zombies, everybody was dead—ring a bell? So we find Gareth and Mary's heads, and Carl turns to me and says 'I know a guy likes cuttin' heads off, and he also has a tank.'” A pause, for effect. “And here we are.”

  
Philip looks at Rick, then back at Negan, and Rick can literally see his spine stiffen, his hackles start to rise. Unwinds his arms and starts to loom, intentionally or not, as he growls:

“You knew what they were doin' there, though, right? Those people, those _fucking_...people... They ate their own _kids._ Ate _other_ people's kids. I'd've killed 'em twice, if I could. Killed 'em three times, and walked away laughin'.”

  
Negan nods. “Yeah, they were pretty crazy; not the kinda place you wanted to go for Sunday dinner, to put it mildly. But good little providers, nevertheless—and that's the part I was interested in. Not my business how they chose to run their town, no more than it'll be my business how you choose to run yours, from now on.”

  
“'Scuse me?”

  
“Nope, don't think I will. 'Cause, see—when you took out Terminus, Governor, you took on their debt. You owe me one whole year's back rent, plus half of everything _you_ have, stuck in on top.” Adding, as the man in question boggles just a bit: “Would've charged ya a pretty hefty vig, too, but I know you didn't know any better, so...really, I think that's pretty fuckin' nice of me! Wouldn't you agree?”

  
 _That big pile of stuff,_ Rick thinks, knowing the Governor's probably thinking the same. Remembering, at the same time, how he called him _the town drunk who messed up my lawn_ once, during an argument, only to watch Philip turn red yet not debate it overmuch, 'cause he knew it was essentially true—might act like a warlord out in the world, but Rick's seen him with his pants off a few too many times to believe the hype entirely, these days.

 _This_ guy, though...he's a legitimate gangster, oxymoronic as that might sound; got the jargon down, and everything. Which why Rick longs to hiss _AGREE, you ass,_ at Philip instead, right this instant, quiet enough so Negan maybe won't hear; _buy us some time, enough to figure out an exit—the beginning of one, damnit, at the very least..._

  
Ends up letting his hand fall to his gun-butt, however, watching that very particular crazy glint mount up in the Governor's eye: pop the holster's clasp, ready to draw. 'Cause from where he's stood, Rick can already see he sure ain't about to do _that._

  
“I don't owe you _shit,_ ” Philip Blake tells Negan, simply, voice gone all extra-deep, dark like rolling thunder. “ _We_ don't owe you shit.” To which Negan, in return, just grins all the wider.

  
And: “Oh,” he replies, his own tone almost gleeful. “I was SO hopin' you'd say that.”


	15. Chapter 15

Things always start to move faster when people are shooting at you, that's what Rick Grimes has consistently found, even when the end result of said shooting turns out to be three months in a coma. And Woodbury's fall is no exception to this rule, though granted, he does manage to get through it all still upright...more than he can say for the Governor, as it turns out.

  
Negan hauls out a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire, calls it “Lucille,” starts in on some well-worn pitch about how he loves this bitch, he really does, he'd fuck her if he could, and what have you. It's an escalation both the Governor and Rick already know to expect, mainly 'cause Carl told them about it, back in the woods: this is what happened with Shane, what happened _to_ Shane. And when somebody opens the other side of the van, Rick's braced to see them pull out Meghan; Philip too, by this shoulders' set.

  
Instead of her, however, it's Martinez—fighting hard, with a cut lip and both his eyes blacked—followed by Shumpert, unable to quite bite back a muffled yelp as they move him, stumping him along on a stiff, well-wrapped right leg whose shattered knee looks likes somebody capped it. And _then_ Meghan, finally, bringing up the rear, wrists tag-tied in front and dragged along by some hefty gal wearing lingerie above and camo below, like a damn _Survivalist Monthly_ centerfold.

  
 _Beat him 'til his skull cracked like an egg,_ Carl said, _'til one eye popped out and his jaw was so torn you could see all his teeth, 'til his neck broke and his head swung 'round like a puppet:_ big, strong, unstoppable Shane Walsh, same guy who showed Rick his first _Playboy_ and gave Rick his first black eye. Had a temper on him, could be a bit of an asshole, but he could always make Rick laugh—he was his partner, best man, best friend. His _brother._

  
 _And then Mom,_ Mom...

  
 _Sorry 'bout your wife, Officer,_ Negan will tell him, later, up at the prison. _She was one sweet-ass piece, and tough? Man! Though that does seem to be a Grimes family trait, now I come to think._ After which he'll pause for effect, then add: _I'd've liked it to've gone another way._

  
And Rick will nod, then reply: _Yeah, I'll bet. But then again, though Lori and me did have our problems, I at least had the sense not to_ rape _her, then go to sleep in the same bed after, expectin' to still find my balls intact come morning. So it must've been really somethin' to figure out she'd actually managed to kill herself during the night, just so's you'd wake up next to a damn walker._

  
 _Gonna kill you for that, as much as for the other,_ Rick thinks right now, looking at Negan, with not one shred of immediate proof what he's saying will come true. But feeling it kindle his stomach nonetheless—cold and sharp, a frozen candleflame—even as the Governor, who already well-knows what it's like to love a real sibling so much you genuinely hate him, just curses at the sight. Exclaiming, as he does—

  
“Aw, shit up a rope! Sent those two out to look for Meghan the minute we got got back, so I'd have more time with Lilly, to explain...”

  
“Yeah, that's what I thought. How much time you think we got left now?”

  
Philip hisses. “Depends on how long it takes for him to break through a man's skull with that damn thing, I guess.”

  
Rick glances at Negan, who's taking a few practice swings now, showing off. Down on the line, they're swapping Matinez out for Shumpert, and Rick feels a gross little stab of relief at the sight; Cleve's already half-fucked, what with that leg of his, while every minute Caesar stays alive gives him one more chance to make a run for it, maybe after grabbing Meghan. Hears Philip whisper to Pete and Alisha at the same time, _go for exit protocol_ or something, which doesn't sound good on any level, 'specially considering Rick doesn't really know what it even _means;_ guesses he must've managed to miss that particular planning session, which kind of makes sense, if the Governor called it sometime during Rick's grief-stricken wallow in the wake of Haley and Evan's deaths...

  
They're both dropping off the gate now, Alisha one way and Pete the other, running for the buses, waving at Tyreese, Sasha, Bob Stookey. At which point Rick hears the Governor's walkie squeal again, and Mitch's tinny tank-bound voice ask, quiet—

  
“Gov, you still there? Come back.”

“Sure am, Mitch,” Philip answers, equal-low. “Come back.”

  
There's a slight pause punctuated by a single, shaky breath, followed by this simple question: “Promise me you'll get Pete out alive, no matter what...come back?” And—

  
“Yes I do,” the Governor lies, face straighter than a honeymoon dick. “On my wife's grave and my daughter's soul, come back.”

  
“...all right, then.”

  
Negan's cocking Lucille back for real now, aiming for Shumpert's hung-down head, and Rick can see Carl shoot a reluctant glance over Meghan's way, looking grim. Probably thinking 'bout deals with the Devil, and if so, Rick knows just how he feels—not that it matters all too much, in context.

  
 _Gotta do what you can live with, son,_ he remembers telling him once, so goddamn long ago. _Do it if you can, and if you can't, then don't. 'Cause in the end, that's the one and only rule that really matters._

  
Feels sort of like he's forgotten that, for a long time now. Or maybe it just turned out he could live with a lot more than he ever thought he could back when the stakes were considerably lower, the rules themselves considerably more black and white.

  
Things change, though, don't they? Indubitably. Stuff...just happens.

  
 _We're all made to suffer in this world, and none of it means you're special. None of it means you get anything but pain, with an option on yet more pain still to come._

  
But: “Fuck it,” Rick Grimes says, out loud; time to start acting like a cop again, sooner rather than later. And he pulls his Colt.

  
***

  
Fast, faster, fastest. What comes next takes thirty minutes at the most, blazing by in a haze of fierce action, and by the end every breath burns, much like Woodbury itself: seven years' worth of hard work and sacrifice put to the sword, left untenable, full of explosions, wreckage and walkers. 'Cause this is what _exit protocol_ means, Rick figures out fast enough, once the ball starts rolling: burn it all down and salt it over, kill everyone you can and save the rest, then ride away laughing. Means _fuck_ you, _motherfucker, you think you're gonna take what's mine without a fight, or hold it longer than five minutes after, tops._

  
And okay, it's crazy, like so many of the Governor's ideas, especially lately...but given circumstances, Rick thinks he's fine with it, in retrospect; knows he is, actually. 'Cause—

 _  
_—shit, what's the alternative, exactly?

  
Rick puts a bullet through Lucille at the height of the swing, blowing out a chunk big enough to almost snap that bitch in half. Doesn't quite save Shumpert from the full impact but at least cuts it slightly, and it does give Caesar his opportunity; the man makes one of those famous caporeira spins, kicks the guy nearest to him right off his feet and grabs his gun on the way down. He falls back, shooting for Negan, but only manages to get Shumpert, who Negan kicks towards him like a human shield, sprawling ass-first back against the van.

Which's about the same time Philip starts shooting too, pocking the gal holding Meghan through her forehead. “RUN, BABY, RUN!” he bellows, and Meghan takes off like a rabbit one way, Caesar the other.

  
Priorities predictable if not exactly straight, Carl leaps headlong from the van's roof and starts chasing after her, leaving the 50-caliber unattended. And: “Goddamn shitbags!” Negan's yelling, blood-soaked weapon of his cradled in both hands. “Redneck faggot assholes, you _killed_ her!” To which Rick just yells in back without thinking, voice sliding headlong into a pitch-perfect Shane impression:

“Really oughtta thank me, man—that bat'll be a whole lot easier to FUCK, now you finally got a place to stick your dick in it!”

  
This draws an immediate hail of bullets, one clipping Rick's ear as Philip pulls him back by his collar, just barely getting them both behind the nearest tire-pile before there's a massive, grinding crunch of machinery from below and Mitch moves out, firing almost simultaneously. Rick's not exactly familiar with the mechanics, but when shell meets van, van's pretty much guaranteed to lose; it crumples like a paper cup, leaving a hole, and the back-blast throws both Rick and Philip free as the North Gate itself takes a concussive hit, hinges popping—

—but naturally enough, given the time lag between turret rotation and impact, Negan's not one of the casualties. Since that'd be waaay too easy.

 _  
_“Gotta _go,_ NOW, 'fore...” Philip's yelling in Rick's other ear, the one that's dazed but unwounded, when the escape-route fence blows down in a bazooka-bred fireball. Behind them, the East and South Gates have already been opened, letting in a flood of noise-attracted walkers, and somebody seems to've doused them in gas as they go by before throwing down a lighter; even with their stumbling gait, the resulting fire spreads like Dresden, 'specially when the remaining fuel-stocks go up. In front, meanwhile, the tank grinds on, flattening what's left of the van as Mitch continues to use up the rest of his ammunition on the ass-end of Negan's army. Rick can only assume he'll shoot himself before they can pry him free, once his capacity to do harm's been completely compromised.

  
They boot it over to the buses, where as many of Woodbury's citizens as Tara, Lilly and the rest could net are already waiting—all except Tyreese, bazooka discarded and running like the linebacker he once was, plus Pete Dolgen, who's making a break the opposite way, headed for the gate.

“Get the hell in that bus!” the Governor yells, but Pete doesn't stop, so Rick grabs him by one arm, Philip the other. “Get the fuck _in,_ that's an ORDER, soldier!” he snaps again, to which Pete just shakes his head.

  
“Mitch—”

  
“Mitch's dead, Pete,” Rick tells him, not without sympathy. “You already know it, so c'mon.”

  
“No! We could still—”

 _  
_“Ain't gonna happen. Don't make his sacrifice for nothin'.”

“But—”

  
“Just get the hell IN, goddamnit!” Philip roars. “Stop settin' a bad example!” Because sure enough, some people seated up front in the nearest bus're already looking like they want to start getting back out, even as the Saviours batter the North Gate open by ramming fresh trucks against it—and when Pete still wavers, Philip just slaps the Beretta to his temple, firing before Rick even has a chance to protest.

Pete's brains splash up against the nearest bus's back window, drawing a flurry of screams; the driver steps on the gas, busting straight through the gap with the other bus right behind it, so fast it leaves everyone still in motion stranded: Tyreese and Alisha (Tara stuck to one arm, late as usual), Philip and Rick, plus a couple of random stragglers.

  
Luckily, there's still that one gassed-up Range Rover back near the War Museum, so they turn and run for it, head-shotting flaming biters as they go—which is right when the gate falls down and the Saviors swarm in, all chaos and confusion. Philip's hit once, twice, but keeps on running, vaulting into the van's shotgun seat, firing for cover while Rick revs her up; Alisha turns back, Tyreese grabbing onto Tara as she tries to follow, pulling her inside.

“JUST GO!” Alisha shrieks at them, pulling the pin on her last grenade, and Rick floors it.

  
He can still hear Tara screaming Alisha's name when the blast goes off.

***

Christ knows how Rick keeps those two buses in sight, what with the road a literal war-zone, but he does. Speeds past Carl, still struggling with Meghan, and swerves just enough to throw Philip's aim off when he sees the Governor target his son's Sheriff's-hatted head; side-swipes Negan himself at one point, screaming something about retribution. In the back, Tara's alternately sobbing on Tyreese's shoulder and cursing Philip out, only gradually getting softer, the more miles they put underneath.

“Wish I was dead too,” she whispers, finally, somewhere around the start of the red zone, to which Philip replies, without turning: “'Course you do. But there'll come a day when you won't.”

It may be one of the nicest things Rick's ever heard the Governor say to another person besides him (or Lilly, or Meghan), and true, to boot. But he doesn't think Tara's quite ready to see it that way, as yet.

  
When they reach the wind-farm, their agreed-upon meet-point, Rick's heart gives a leap to see both buses already there—but nobody else, as it turns out. Seems like Eugene must've seen Woodbury's smoke go up and decided to haul ass, maybe even caught himself a fresh ride to D.C. by finally convincing the rest of the farm's contingent that his cure-all-zombies quest (however unlikely) sure beats the figurative pants off of getting killed fighting a war they never had any input into declaring, in the first place.

“Goddamn scientists, you just can't trust 'em,” is all Philip manages, before passing out at last.

  
“Where now?” Lilly asks Rick, who pulls out a map—but instead of tapping the prison, Philip's original choice, he instead indicates a spot considerably closer, in almost the exact opposite direction.

  
“This here's our best best, probably,” he offers, “if y'all are still willing to trust my word: tiny little town, too small for Negan to bother with, 'cause it looks like it's full to the gills with walkers. Best if we dump the vehicles outside, walk in radio-silent and don't use our guns, but so long's we can make it to this square, there's folks will meet us halfway.”

  
Lilly looks to Bob Stookey and Sasha, who nod. “What's it called?” Sasha wants to know.

  
“Cynthiana,” Rick says. _  
_


	16. Chapter 16

NOW:

  
And here they are at last, almost two weeks later, finally where they always intended to end up, though that's hardly much of a comfort: behind strong walls and fences but totally alone, surrounded, facing the exact same relentless enemy as before. Payback's a bitch, is probably what the surviving Woodburyites would say, were anyone to ask 'em...but then again, Rick Grimes and Brian “Philip” Blake've always known _that._

  
“You boys hear me, the first time or what?” Negan yells again, from outside. “Said c'mon the hell down, and I meant it! Now, we took out one fence, and it's already startin' to look kind of crowded out here—so I suggest you get your hustle on, 'fore we shoot this place full'a holes!”

  
“I'm not hearin' a whole lot of incentive,” Rick calls back, taking enough of a cautious peep out the window to confirm that yes, they really do have the tank with 'em, for what that's worth, before Philip pulls him back down with a growl. “Particularly 'cause even if you scraped together enough fuel to get up here, I find it hard to believe you found rounds—and given Mitch'd fired all the last ones _we_ had by the time you finally capped his ass, I think it's a bit more likely you're runnin' on empty.”

  
“Want to try me, Officer?”

  
Rick gives a shrug, well aware Negan can't see it, but hoping it'll translate nonetheless. “'S what I just said, pretty much; if you really do got money to put where your mouth is, I'd be damn surprised. Care to prove me wrong?”

  
There's a breathless kind of pause, punctuated only dimly by the random moan vs. _thunk!_ of Negan's soldiers shanking walkers in the middle distance, preserving a perimeter; Philip shoots Rick a narrow glance—sidelong, the only way he can—and gets nothing but a hiked eyebrow in return, as Rick finds himself replaying the next-to-last thing Carl snarled at him, back in the woods: _Used to dream about you, Governor, almost every night...what you did with Shane, that pit, the biters. But I don't anymore, not for years, and you know why? 'Cause I finally met somebody who's WORSE._

  
Which is true, far as Rick can see, and probably makes this crazy bastard below them nobody to joke around with: at base, Philip wants folks to love him, way he's sadly incapable of loving himself, but Negan feeds off of pure and simple fear, a considerably easier effect to conjure. And while both of 'em are capable of awful things, Negan _will_ go further; Rick definitely believes Carl, on that...

  
...still, considering he's probably going to die today anyhow, one way or the other, he's also tired enough at this point not to give all too much of a shit.

  
The silence breaks, finally, with a long, loud laugh, after which Negan readily admits: “Aw, shit—you got me, Rick; tank's not really loaded, and though it _might_ be able to get through that gate eventually, it'd probably take a lot longer than we really have time for.” A beat. “But, then again...that's why we brought the kids.”

  
Knows he should have expected it, but it still knocks Rick back—he pops up again, barely avoiding Philip's grab, just in time to see Carl and Meghan dragged up through the crowd, which parts around 'em; both fighting hard, especially Carl, who's cursing a blue streak at his former fellow Saviors, in between piling verbal filth on Negan's head like it's his job. Negan just smirks, though, pulling a freshly barbed wire-wrapped new bat out of the chopper he must've rode in on's sidecar: Lucille 2.0, in the splintery flesh. Parks it on his shoulder and continues, gesturing—

  
“Now, I kinda hate to do this, Rick, 'cause I really do _like_ your wayward son; hell, even like this little bitch of yours, Philip, 'cause you sure did teach her right—may be small, but she's _vicious._ Don't worry, nobody's messed with her! But if one of you doesn't bring the other down here before I get done counting five, well...we're gonna see some fun.”

  
“What's that s'posed to mean?”

  
Negan shrugs. “Look, this whole burning your own town down thing, the tank attack, the flaming zombie swarm...it's just business, I get it: fortunes of war, and all that happy crappy. But then you went and got me sore, Officer, by shootin' Lucille in the back like a damn coward; made me lose my cool, even maybe look weak in front of my guys. Can't have that. So here's the deal—valuable as you both are, I sure don't need you takin' sides against me. Which basically means we cut the knot, right here and now: winner gets to join up and the loser takes a fall, right here in public, to show just what happens when somebody tries to screw with me.”

  
From behind Rick, Philip—now up as well—leans forward and huffs, asking: “...and what's Door Number Two entail, exactly?”

  
“Oh, one on one with Lucille if you make me wait, but a nice, quick bullet to the head if you don't. I'm tryin' to be humane, here.”

  
“Hah! Thanks for that.”

  
Negan nods, all fake-sympathetic. “I mean, you guys been together a while now, so I see how it might be kinda...wrenching, the prospect of having to break up the band. But look at it this way—whichever of you gets to walk, they're always gonna know it was the other one who _really_ loved 'em best. That's sort'a beautiful, in its own way.”

  
Now it's Rick's turn to look at Philip and the Governor's turn to shrug, stiffly. “Give us a minute?” Rick yells back down.

  
And: “Sure,” Negan replies, buffing his nails on his coat and admiring the sheen, like it's nothing much to him. “But make it fast.”

  
Rick stands there a second with his mind circling, trying to think, to plan—find some way out for both of 'em, let alone those poor kids, as opposed to doing what this ludicrous goddamn fuck-bucket wants; makin' it so neither one of 'em has to agree to be damn well beaten to death with that...fetishistic sex-aid of his, just to soothe the man's stupid ego. And remembering at the same time how, not all too long back, it was Philip himself mumbling similar sentiments into Rick's shoulder, rage-baffled and borderline afraid: _don't know what to do, think and think, but it's no use; can't plan, there's no...I just..._

('Cause: _Lost it all, so this is it, I guess_ )

  
( _the end, of every damn thing_ )

  
Glances up again, then, only to find Philip looking down on him with his single slant-set blue eye oddly kind, unreadable face gone soft in ways Rick's seldom seen it. Takes just one minute more, then asks: “The rest of 'em, back in Cynthiana—Lilly, Tara and the others; we did the right thing there, yeah? They're safe?”

  
“...for now, I guess.”

  
““Well.” After which he squares his shoulders, drawing himself up full height—impressive yet, even after all these years—and says, like it's all been settled: “Then I don't care what judgement falls on me, so long's Meghan makes it out of this alive; for all Lilly's probably right to question whether or not I'm capable of keepin' _any_ little girl alive, what with my past record, she sure can't say I never loved her, or her me. Feel the same way 'bout your boy, I don't doubt, ungrateful little traitor...”

  
“Don't call him that.”

  
“Oh ho, and why not? 'Cause the apple don't fall far?”

  
“More like 'cause I might've managed to teach him better if _you_ hadn't made it impossible, you Godalmighty son of a bitch!” Rick snaps, hand slapping his holster, hard enough to hurt...but only for an instant, much the same duration as the Governor's snarl, before they both let their breaths out: no point in one last tussle, not when the clock's ticking. “But let's not fight,” he says, finally.

  
“No, let's not,” Philip agrees, without heat. “Need to show you something, anyways.”

  
“We don't have time—”

  
“Sssh, Richard. Just...look.”

  
Which is right when he flips up the side-panel of his shirt, of _course,_ pulling his waistband down—a cheap showman's gesture, and when he sees what it reveals Rick feels like he just got punched: no wonder the bastard didn't want to take his pants off, earlier, for that brief, cold shower. Because sometime during their struggle up the hill, a biter must've take a goddamn chunk out of his side; there's just a red mess of torn flesh and pus left behind, skin lightly flapped over the damage, with necrotic black streaks arching out every which-way.

_Oh, yeah. THAT's not good._

  
“You selfish fuckin' bastard,” Rick's already blurted out, before he can think better of it. “I slept all damn night in that tower, right next to you!”

  
“Yeah, well, I wasn't so bad, back then. Almost convinced myself that maybe...” The Governor sighs, then sighs again, deeper still. “Aw hell, you know I'm like a wrecking ball—not much that ever _can_ stop me, really, I just put my mind to it. So I guess I just halfway started to think I could...shake it off, maybe.”

“That ain't the kinda thing you 'shake off,' goddamnit! For Christ's sake, Philip—”

  
But here Rick stops short, voice drying away to nothing mid-word; just stares up, helpless, as the man himself shapes that same provoking smile he's applied to justabout a thousand different lies in the time Rick's known him: by omission or commission, straight out or sideways, stretching the truth or bending it 'til it snaps, opening it all the way up just to wrap a new-laid lie inside. Rick can recognize the scent of it in his sleep, faint but unmistakeable, well enough that he once snapped at him, during a semi-recent argument: _Yeah, now I_ know _you're lyin' and can you guess how come? It's 'cause your_ mouth _is movin'!_

  
“Well past time to stop arguing, like you said, and get down to it,” the Governor points out, gently. “I mean, for one thing...that's not even really my _name_.”

  
Rick swallows, throat suddenly sore, everything 'round him gone just a little swimmy at the edges. Tells him, hoarsely, as he does: “Don't think so, absolutely not. You don't get to _do_ this, you monumental jackass.”

  
“What, _die?_ Turn? Don't think I got much've a choice regardin' either, at this point. 'Sides which, the minute we get down there, all bets're off—this is the single last thing I can do for you, for them, the _only_ thing. Negan expects one of us to kill the other, so you give him what he wants and if we're lucky, he'll keep to terms...”

  
“...or won't, more like, 'cause he thinks it's more fun not to. And what then?”

  
“You'll do what's necessary, of course, like you always do: save Meghan and Carl along with her, cut this bastard when he's not lookin', then get all three of you clear, after. I trust you, Richard.”

  
“Oh yeah, 'cause I'm a hero, right? Kind of idiot gets other people killed, then dies themselves?” Rick shakes his head, gives an angry sniff. “Want all this done so damn bad, you maybe better stick around and help, 'stead've letting yourself—”

  
“Would if I could, believe you me, but it ain't in the cards. Just wish...”

  
The Governor pauses, one last time, then gives another head-shake; nothing more to say, not really, seems to be the implication. Nothing that'll help, anyhow.

  
“I've treated you badly, Rick Grimes, and believe it or not, I do know it,” is what he chooses to end with, finally, after all that. “Can't claim I didn't enjoy it, either, 'specially in the moment. But, lookin' back...I really wish I hadn't.”

  
That rumbling voice, pain-abraded to huskiness yet still somehow able to set Rick's insides alight, even as it tweaks at his heart; Rick gives another swallow, equal-dry, caught partway between outright grief and seven years' worth of rage, all the worse for knowing it'll never be satisfied. And—

  
“Makes two of us, I guess,” he manages, at the very last. Before turning and striding, half-blind, straight out the cell's open door.

  
***

  
Then they're walking out through the fence's knocked-down portion, into the lion's den: Rick on the right and Philip the left, Rick loping and Philip sauntering, like he's got all the time in the world. Negan stands there watching them come, a weird sort of pleasure in his gaze, like he's getting a kick out of seeing them together: _Governor, Officer. Y'all'd be the world's best team to have on my side, I didn't know you never would be._

  
“Burned your _own town down,_ just so's I couldn't use it against you,” he repeats, with something approaching admiration. “Man, that shit was _cold_.”

  
“Not from where we were standin',” Philip replies, quick enough. But Rick can already see his eye start to twitch.

  
Negan guffaws. “Aw, hell, strike that pose, why don't ya? Still, you know exactly what I'm talkin' about, you king-size fuck—hubris, plain and simple. Got a slight history of overcompensation, Mister Blake, and it's tantrums like that definitely fit the pattern.”

  
“Says the man started a survivalist cult, just so's he could keep himself in fresh pussy.”

  
“Oh, it was for guns and food too, but yeah, well; sue me. Not all of us're simple enough to be satisfied with just a girlfriend plus a boyfriend.”

  
Philip blinks, snorting. “Seriously, _that_ was your big issue, here? World collapses, every corpse you make gets up hungry for blood, and you're creeped out over how Rick and me choose to split our private time?”

  
“Oh hell no, each to their own—fuck a damn dog if it makes you happy, that's _my_ motto. Just don't tell me about it if you do, 'cause that's really fuckin' sick.” He grins, slyly. “You know, we're not so different, you 'n' me...”

  
“Uh huh, or much the same, either. Since I don't tend to burn people in the face when they disagree with me, to cite just one example.”

  
“Aw, you're just pissed you didn't think of it first. Point is, you _would,_ Philip, so don't pretend; only thing ever kept you from being me is Rick, here...and given the current situation, what you maybe need to ask yourself is, was that really a _good_ thing?”

  
Philip looks at Rick, raising his eyeless brow. And: “Yeah,” he says, without hesitation. “Kinda think it was, overall.”

  
Now it's Negan's turn to snort. “Hmph: very romantic.” To Rick. “So what's your verdict, Officer Grimes?”

  
“Want my son back, is all. And _his_ daughter.”

  
“'Course you do. Well...you know the price.”

  
Rick nods, then pulls his Colt, slapping it up against Philip's jaw-hinge. “You heard the man, Governor,” he says, voice steady. “Time to pay up.”

  
Time gives a brief, slow skip, stuttering between breaths, and it's as though Rick can see things from all angles just for a second, the God's eye view: Meghan locking eye(s) with the nearest thing to a good father she's known, screaming the Governor's chosen name; Philip— _Brian,_ god DAMN—staring down at her in turn, mouthing something which might be _sorry, honey,_ like he actually thinks she might hear it. Carl, his own stare locked fast on the man with one hand on his neck's holster, fingers visibly itching. And Negan, watching Rick for any sign of weakness, any sign of sorrow, so he can suck it up like the vampire he is—

  
—all attention paid only to Rick's face, the fuckin' idiot, which is why there's no way on earth he sees Rick move the Colt's barrel just a half-inch further as he finally pulls the trigger, sending the shot through Philip's jugular instead of his skull. Makes a fuck of a bang and sprays a cloud of blood everywhere, though, and the Governor falls like a tree, a stone, some enormous blade cleaving one half of Rick's life from the other. A giant shadow, there then gone, all in one instant.

  
Meghan just keeps on screaming, high and thin, as though it was _her_ just died. While Carl gets a dazed expression, like he doesn't know if he should be happy or not—like he can't remember how that even feels—as Rick looks to Negan, cocking his head, like any good dog. “Well?” he asks. “You satisfied, or what?”

  
“Not even a goodbye, huh?”

  
“He knew what was comin'.”

  
“Unsentimental little bastard, ain't ya? Not too sure if I _like_ that, in context.”

  
And here Rick feels hands on him from behind, one grabbing his gun—no surprise there—as the others push him down, onto his knees. Looks up to see Negan unsling his weapon, starting in on yet another pitch, predictable as winter from spring: how he heard Rick was honest, but how can he trust a man'll shoot his own boss, let alone his own...whatever you guys called each other? It's like he broke up a set, and now there's just Minnie without Mickey, Starsky without Hutch; just ain't right, Officer, you gotta see _that._ I mean, it's like the old joke goes...you break 'im, you bought 'im.

  
(But what do _you_ think, Lucille?)

  
“Just too bad things had to work out like this, is all,” Negan tells him, mock-sadly. “I mean, all I wanted was to be friends...” To which Rick responds, suddenly unbearably tired: “No, you damn well didn't.”

  
To which Negan just shrugs, like: _yeah, you're right. Not really sure what I_ did _want, at this point, but it probably wasn't that. Oh well._

  
 _Batter up!_

  
It's a calculated risk, and Rick almost doesn't really care whether or not it pays off, right this very moment. Feels the weight of what he's done pressing down on him all over, a lead-lined glove, and thinks harder than he ever believed he might about simply closing his eyes, letting whatever happens happen. At least he'll go out like Shane, paying his debt to him and Lori in blood and torn flesh; least Carl'll get to watch, have some satisfaction out of the bargain, 'til Negan turns on him too...

  
But that, right then, is when the Governor opens his eye again, gone filmy and yellow, right when they're neither of 'em watching. Peels his dead lips back in a snarl and pops back up with almost comedic speed, growling in his throat—then leaps on Negan like a leopard, chomping down hard, straight into that too-happy motherfucker's neck.

  
Was always Milton Mamet's contention that the length of the fever determined how fast someone would come back, as Rick vaguely recalls, and by his own testimony, the Governor—with typical grandiosity—had been fighting this thing for longer than anybody else Rick's ever seen. Which is why he's not surprised how powerful he still is, even caught in the virus's grip, though it does seem to hit everyone else a tad harder: the Saviors jump back almost as one, stumbling and yelling, while their leader screams and thrashes under Philip's grinding, gnashing jaws, gargling his own blood.

  
It's a perfect distraction, just the right amount of cover for Rick to whip the Governor's knife from his boot, where he stashed it, and drive it up into the nearest man's groin, hacking the femoral artery in half. Then when that guy falls, screaming, Rick grabs the other one, hilting his blade between collarbone and windpipe—turns him even as the next nearest Savior (one of two holding Carl) fires at him, grabbing the dying guy's gun and using it to shoot the shooter at the same time, working his hand like a puppet's on the trigger. That's when Carl makes his move, wrestling that gun he was eye-fucking free and beating the guy he took it from down, pistol-whipping him like its butt's a set of brass knuckles.

  
Teeth fly, chaos ensues, it's an all-out brawl; Meghan gets in on it too, sinking her teeth in one man's leg, curling up as he roars and tries to stomp her. Then Rick takes one in the shoulder, and Carl just goes apeshit—vaults into a truck with yet another mounted machine-gun, throwing Meghan his gun, and turns it towards the crowd, riddling Negan's advance line. People dive under cars, scatter like a herd, fall headlong into ditches; Meghan gets the guy still attempting to subdue her in his chest, then his head, and rolls to her hands and knees before springing up headlong, coming for Rick, screaming: “ _Killed_ him, you KILLED him! You, _you, YOU—_ ”

  
“Meghan,” Rick protests, dodging, “c'mon, honey...you gotta know he was dead already...”

  
An utterly useless gesture, as he well-knows; she doesn't even pause to listen, just shoots at him instead, forcing him to dodge behind the tank. And there's where he runs almost right into Negan and Philip, the Governor having worked his way down past Negan's ribcage, to the soft top of the man's gut—got his whole face all dug in, rooting 'round in there like a hog, grunting and moaning, grey beard dyed red. And Negan, Christ: bastard's _still alive_ somehow, legs drumming and crotch piss-soaked, far all the rest've him's paralyzed with pain. Barely able to talk above a whisper, blood bubbling from his cannibalized windpipe, as he flicks agonized eyes Rock's way and begs him to _kill me, Jesus, just fuckin' do it, PLEASE...._

  
But: “Fuck I will,” Rick replies, grabbing up Lucille, from where that bitch's rolled free. Then slams it into Negan's head, a near-perfect imitation of Philip's own favourite golf-slice turned upside-down: one hard shot then another, and so on, so on, so on. Smashes him to pulp with a series of blows so hammer-hard they make Rick's arms ring and splint, his fisted hands spasm like they're on fire, even as he hears himself yell from somewhere far away, over and goddamn over—

  
 _You burnt my son in the_ face, _asshole! In the fuckin' FACE!_

_  
How's that feel, shitbird? Huh? How's she fuck, anyhow? Good as you thought?_

_  
Good as my fuckin' WIFE?_

  
Seems to go on forever, but there's no way that's true; a minute at most, would be Rick's guess. Because the next thing he feels is another bullet, streaking by him so close it blows the very top layer of the cheek-skin open, a friction-cut. Looks up to see Meghan standing there, panting, her ragged breath wracking her like sobs, and waits for her to put one in him either further down or further up, make sure he dies just as one-eyed as the man they both loved, in their own weird ways...

  
She doesn't, though. Looks up over his shoulder instead, eyes widening, full of hope and fear combined. Which is when Rick realizes the Governor must be on his feet once more.

  
There's no possible way she thinks he's still _him,_ for God's sake; seen more'n enough biters in her time to make that distinction, this one, given her body-count's about as high as Carl's was, when he was the same age. But—she _wants_ to believe different, Rick knows, just like Philip once did, about Penny. Just like Rick would've longed to, about Carl.

  
(Carl, still firing at will up above them, hard enough to actually make Negan's horde pull back—squeal of tires, crunch of approaching walkers driven over, distant roar and _whump!_ as vans going too fast for comfort start to swerve, crash into each other, flip and ignite in their haste to get away. But it's not just him, Rick's almost certain; couldn't be. There's something else going on, more gunfire filtering in from either side plus the sound of hoofbeats, galloping horses, revving engines...)

  
 _Someone's coming,_ Rick thinks, dimly, pain of his wounds finally beginning to mount, affecting him like a shot of whisky plus medication, Philip murmuring Brian Blake's name in his ear in the dark. But then he gets distracted again, because here comes the Governor's corpse blundering past him, mouth open and full of meat, reaching for Meghan with those huge, dead hands, like it wants to rip the girl it died to save apart—

  
Meghan screams again, hopeless, and fires off the rest of her clip: too low do do much good, mainly, maybe 'cause she's having a hard time seeing to target, with her eyes full of tears. But Rick leaps into action at the same time, grabbing zombie-Philip from behind and twisting, 'til they're face to snarling face—rams Lucille up between the Governor's open jaws like he's muzzling a dog, making it impossible for him to bite. Then feels his ankle twist beneath him and goes down with Philip on top, unable to stop himself, screwed by gravity yet again; back of his head slams against the ground, Philip's weight crushing most've his air out in one massive “oof!”

  
Hears an engine start up, grinding, clattering, like a goddamn jackhammer: oh FUCK, is that the _tank?_ Are they right in its way? Philip's just as strong dead as he was alive, fighting hard against the bat, tearing at Rick's clothes with his nails; Rick feels his arms strain, sure they're going to break. But even as he pressed backwards, he sees a weird tangled flurry of movement at the edge of his vision that later turns out to be Daryl Dixon sweeping in on his bike like some souped-up Hell's Angel cavalry charge, throwing a pin-less grenade down the tank's cannon; seconds later, the whole thing rocks with internal combustion, stopping short just as it rolls over one of Philip's boots, pinning him 'til he tears himself free, minus a foot. The driver makes it out just in time for Daryl to put an arrow in his head.

But Rick doesn't have much opportunity to congratulate him, 'cause that's exactly when Lucille snaps in half again, and Philip's teeth clamp onto Rick's right hand with a mighty leonine _chomp,_ almost meeting.

  
DEAD I'M DEAD I'M DEAD, Rick's brain screams, all caps, no punctuation. OH FUCK I'M DEAD I'M GODDAMN DAMN WELL _DEAD—_

  
Pop of a silenced sniper's headshot follows, most've the Governor's temple suddenly gone and Rick's own skull back-splashed with brain, praying none of it got into his mouth; the ring of it deafens him, and he's still trying to tear his hand free from those crooked teeth when something else slices through his wrist, so fast and sure the pain hardly registers: Michonne's sword, gotta be, nothing else cuts bone like butter. But but but but but—

  
—his brain locks here, bright sliding into white, sun swallowed up whole. And Rick Grimes is once more sent rocketing back to black, hoping for coma but betting on death, 'cause hell, it's just math: ain't nobody born can possibly be quite _this_ lucky and unlucky both, can they? Not forever.

  
That's what Philip...Brian...Blake would say, anyhow, probably, using those much-discussed budget-balancing skills of his. If he was still alive enough to ask.

  
 _Did my best,_ Rick thinks, not even really sure it's true, given everything. And lets himself go, falling deep, into a darkness more than night.


	17. Chapter 17

It takes a long time for Rick to wake up, though how long exactly isn't certain. When he does, however, he half-expects to find Philip...Brian...sprawled out next to him, hugging him for comfort—but of course he doesn't, and in a minute more, he even remembers why. Which is one kind of shock, sad, yet not completely unexpected...but then he raises the stump where his right hand used to be, and almost screams out loud.

  
Somebody grabs him, then, hands on either side pressing him down—dark brown on the left and sinewy pink on the right, both necessarily firm, but not too cruel. While: “Rick!” another voice says, near the door. “You're awake—and _okay,_ too. Oh, thank God.”

  
“Lilly...?” Rick whispers, or thinks he does, his lips gone numb, mouth dry. And she leans in over him, dark hair hanging, eyes full of unshed tears; smiles at him gently, same way she used to whenever they sat whispering in the Governor's kitchen with their heads bent together, with the man himself snoring satisfied nearby.

  
“That's right,” she says. “We...had to do it, Rick, you understand. Michonne took it off with her sword and Bob did the wrap-up, after; was touch and go there for a while, but the infection didn't take. Been pumping antibiotics into you for three days now, 'til the fever went down.”

  
Rick nods, vaguely; all sounds plausible enough, and now he recognizes who else is in the room—Michonne and Daryl, obviously—the fear's beginning to wear off. Besides, he can barely keep his eyes open, which tips him off to the possibility he also might just still be doped to the gills.

  
“Did what...y'had to, I guess,” he manages, before dropping straight back into a deep yet fitful sleep.

  
***

  
In his dreams, Shane and Lori visit him and he tries to apologize, a process sadly undercut by the fact that Lori is a fresh-made, lingerie-clad walker—definitely dead, though not yet rotten—and most of Shane's face has been pulped by Negan's beloved Lucille. Shane looks at him with one popped-egg eye and grins, shredded lips peeling queasily away over a full, red set of shattered teeth, while Lori strokes Rick's remaining hand with her cold, dry fingers, then tries to raise it to her mouth. Which is when Rick finally manages to wake again, screaming.

  
This time, it's Michonne sitting by his bedside, alone. “Bet you wonder how we came to be there, at the end,” she says, without preamble.

  
Rick clears his throat, tongue feeling caked, like it's wearing a dusty sock. Then suggests: “'Cause...y' waited five years for me, but then I ran off with that...'toxic sucker' anyways, to get m'self killed?”

  
“Almost succeeded, too.”

  
“Yup. But I...knew you'd come save me.”

  
“Knew?”

  
“...okay, hoped. Maybe.”

  
Michonne gives him the side-eye, so hard it skews her features far enough she almost starts to look like somebody else dressed up as her, clingy yellow shirt he first saw her in and all. And: “ _Really,_ ” she replies, unconvinced.

  
“Jesus, just _fuck_ him, already!” yells Daryl, from the other room.

  
***

  
“Travelled up the night before, quiet as possible, then chose our spots, and waited,” she eventually explains, a day or two later, when Rick's well enough to sit up and try clumsily ladeling some of Lilly's famous everything-we-got soup into him, using his non-dominant hand. “We'd been talking it over for about a day after you two left, and Morgan finally agreed how Negan most probably wasn't gonna leave this area alone, not after what happened at Woodbury. Plan was, if we could just get rid of _him,_ the rest'd cave...the idea, anyways. And as it turned out—”

  
“—they did?” She nods. “So...you used us as bait, in other words.”

  
“Basically, yeah.”

  
Rick nods, not even vaguely betrayed, mostly 'cause he can hear an answering chuckle rumble automatically up from deep inside him—a dead man's all-too-familiar voice, commenting: _Huh. Smart._ Then looks back up to find Michonne watching him, in her usual way—closely, assessingly, but not without sympathy.

  
“Heard him in your head, right then,” she says, not making it a question. “Didn't you?”

  
“...maybe.” Softer: “Is it that obvious?”

  
“Not really. Just how...well, I know that can happen, 'cause it happened to me. Still does, from time to time.”

“You were walkin' 'round leadin' _your_ ghosts on chains for months, Michonne, by your own testimony. Be sorta surprising if it didn't.”

  
“I mean them like they used to be, and my...and Andre, too, sometimes. Sometimes he's a little boy, the way I always want to remember him, but sometimes he's like I found him; just awful, Christ, the worst thing ever. And sometimes...” she trails off, sighs. “Sometimes, he's like he would've been, maybe, he'd lived to see Carl's age. And maybe _that_ 's the worst, I come to think, 'cause it makes me so, damn...happy.”

  
“Carl, yeah. He still here?”

  
She nods.“Yeah, he's settling in—couldn't really go back to the Saviors, not after everything, even if they'd stopped long enough to let him catch up to 'em. Oh, and Martinez showed up too, mainly none the worse for wear, even after forty-eight hours in the red zone.”

  
“That's good.” After a moment: “How's...he seem to you, these days? Carl, I mean.”

  
“Feeling better, I think, about everything; him and Meghan certainly seem to've come to some kind of an agreement, 'cause she isn't pulling a gun on him every time she sees him, anymore.” Which Rick guesses is supposed to make him feel better, so he nods once more, even though it really doesn't, overmuch.

  
“I'm glad,” he says, at last. Adding, as he raises the stump: “And...grateful, for this, believe it or not. However inconvenient, it kept me alive, and I'd rather be that than the alternative.”

  
Michonne nods, but doesn't answer. Not immediately.

  
“When we got up there,” she finally begins, once more, “we didn't really know you two would have a plan as well, though I suspected it.”

  
“Well, that was more've an on-the-fly sort'a thing.”

  
“Yeah, we found the bite on him—the Governor—after.”

  
“Went out with a bang, like he always wanted. Don't think he'd've been unsatisfied to see the damage he did, either.”

  
“Never was, as I recall.”

  
And: why does that automatic dismissal of hers tweak at Rick, even now? Why's it make him want to jump to a dead crazy-man's defense when there's no earthly point to it anymore, not that there ever really was? To throw out how the Governor did good as well as bad, goddamnit, and his worst enemy was always himself?

  
Rick pushes the empty bowl away, wanting to curl back up, but Michonne lays one strong, sword-callused hand on his arm. Says: “Feel like takin' a walk with me, outside in the fresh air, 'fore you go back to sleep?”

  
“Not really.”

  
“Let's do it anyways,” she suggests, and helps him up.

  
***

  
“There's not a one of 'em gives a damn he's dead, and I suppose they've got no reason to,” Rick tells Lilly, the two of them sitting side by side on what used to be the Cynthiana courthouse's roof, where Andrea and Morgan have set themselves up a little vegetable garden, along with three half-gallon tanks for rainwater collection. “Hell, I don't even know why _I_ do, I think about it for more than a minute, but...”

  
“...you just do, regardless,” she finishes. “Yeah, me too.”

  
“Spent so much time factoring him into every decision I made for all these years, that now he's gone, it doesn't feel like I'm free at all. I feel—”

  
“Lost?”

  
“Rudderless. At sea. Like I can't, I can't—”

  
“—see where to go next.” She gives a sigh, folding her arms and hugging herself, like she's cold. “Tara...she wants to move on from here, make a new start, I guess because of Alisha, but I just can't; Bob needs me here, _they_ need me, Morgan's people. And Meghan seems like she's fine with it, but I know she's still grieving—goes out hunting with Daryl Dixon and that son of yours, brings back whatever she can find, has to listen to them bad-mouth Philip all day when she does. I mean, I was angry as _hell_ at him the last time we were all together for doing things that put her in danger, and yet...”

  
“Weren't all too pleased with me, either.”

  
“No, I wasn't—no reason _to_ be, that I could see. But...you came through for us, for her. Him too, in the end.”

  
“He really did love her, y'know.”

  
“Oh, I never doubted that; it was why I took up with him in the first place, like you already knew, right from the start. Just wasn't sure it was always such a healthy thing, for little girls he was supposed to be looking after.”

  
“Yeah, well: I walked away from my own son, Lilly—my wife, my best friend. Said it was to keep 'em safe, at the time, but I probably got 'em killed, by doing it. So I have no right to talk, at all.”

  
She shakes her head. “No one here thinks badly of you for that, Rick, aside from Carl.”

  
“Why not? Y'all _should_ think badly of me! I think badly of myself!”

  
“And that'd be why not, right there: 'cause there's no need. 'Cause we know damn well you'll make yourself feel guilty over it anyhow, with no help at all from us.”

  
***

  
It's an interesting question, Rick supposes, though necessarily painful: what sort of relationship do— _can_ —he and the Chamblers have from now on, exactly? Because soft-hearted as she is, Tara still looks at him like he comes attached to the same person convinced her girlfriend to blow herself up, and while he and Lilly continue to share an easy physical intimacy, the point of their mutual triangle is missing; sad truth is, neither of 'em have ever meant as much to each other as the Governor did to them. He was their uniting bond, the human minefield they negotiated through silent cooperation, their burden and their grace.

  
 _Stockholm Syndrome,_ Rick's heard Michonne call it, when she thinks he's not listening...and yeah, she's probably at least partly right: when you re-make yourself so forcefully, entirely for somebody's else's benefit, you sort of _have_ to get to like the results by the end of the process, 'cause crazy managing crazy is just as bad as the blind leading the blind, if not worse. And it's not like there were no benefits at all to the arrangement, either; not like he never got anything back, in return for what-all he gave. Not like...

  
( _you didn't_ ask _for it, Richard)_

 _ _  
__But here he chokes off the thought unborn, 'cause that way lies madness, just as sure. And he has a duty to what remains of Woodbury to keep himself viable, build himself back up...do whatever he can for them, assuming they'll consent to let him. Or for Morgan's people, at least, if not.

 _ _  
__Community-building's a necessity, especially now—a survival trait, plain and simple. Probably always was, much as pre-apocalypse America might've tried its level best to pretend otherwise.

  
So he throws himself into weapons re-training as part of his physio work, learning how to shoot with his left hand but bracing it on his stump as he aims, to compensate for the ways his loss throws him off. One morning, Daryl brings him a present, courtesy of Woodbury's former metal-welding sculptress turned town blacksmith Josepha Carleton—a sort of weaponized prosthetic attached to a leather harness, something he can fit over his truncated arm and use like a bayonet, for all sorts of close work.

  
The blade looks familiar, as does the hilt, and when Rick looks up at Daryl he just shrugs, half turning away, like he's embarrassed.

  
“Is that—?” Rick asks, and Daryl nods.

  
“Found it on the battlefield, stuck in some fool's neck,” he explains. “Thought how it was prob'ly yours now, if it's anybody's.”

  
“Well...thanks for that.”

 _ _  
__“Y'welcome. Stick a few for me with it, huh?”

  
“More than a few, I'm sure.”

  
Michonne teaches him the basics, cut and parry and thrust. Points out that since the first rule of swordplay is “treat the blade like it's part your arm,” he has a natural jump on a lot of her students, and seems genuinely surprised—not to mention happy—when that gets her a laugh. They spend the next few weeks out on patrol together, working the perimeter, killing and clearing: eat, drink and sleep, talk mainly in gestures and glances, clean each other off and do weapons prep each night, then sleep side by side on a mattress in the same apartment Andrea holed up in with Dale, back when she was afraid his real Daddy might start asking after him.

 _ _  
__And when things finally do graduate, as Daryl always thought they would, it seems...natural, a simple extension of their partnership in every other area. Michonne knows what it's like to feel the past take hold unexpectedly, after all, possibly better than any other person whose bed Rick might've fallen into, aside from one; holds him when the nightmares come, soothing his shakes, and grapples him even more fiercely to her yet whenever panic turns to grief. Doesn't ask him what he dreams about, mostly 'cause she already knows.

  
 _Sounds like love to me,_ she told him, once, back when he still would've scoffed at the idea out loud, much as he suspected it was true. _Dumb-ass, but love, nonetheless...and all love's worth something, I guess. No matter who from, or towards._

  
(And: _Just think how much worse I might've been, Richard, if I'd never met you,_ the Governor whispers, at the same time, in his mental ear. _Just_ think.)

  
Rick Grimes lays his hammering head on Michonne's breasts in the dark, and lets his tears flow freely, cursing the world, and God, and anything else that comes to mind. Cursing himself and Philip...Brian...Blake too, the both, along with all their mutual works.

  
***

  
One morning in spring, there's a knock at the door. It's Meghan, taller than ever, a travel chessboard salvaged from Woodbury's burnt-out ruin tucked underneath one arm...and behind her, Carl. “Mind if we come in?” she asks, and Rick steps back, unable to quite decide between “yes” or “no.” So: “Michonne!” he calls, instead, as the two kids come in. “We got company!”

  
“Just a minute!” she yells back, like this happens every day. And soon enough she and Carl are sharing a big can of pudding she found somewhere in the corner, chatting softly, while Meghan sets up.

  
“Sure you want to do this with me?” Rick asks, somewhat bemused. “I mean, I hear I suck.”

 _ _  
__“Not a whole lot of other takers,” Meghan replies, not looking up. “'Sides which, I was kinda being a brat, when I said that...that's what the Governor told me, anyhow. Said if you were good enough for him, you were more'n good enough for me.”

  
“He did?”

  
“I wouldn't lie about it, Rick.”

  
“No, 'course not. 'Course you wouldn't.”

 _ _  
__If the ensuing game goes longer than either of them are prepared for, with Rick actually putting her in check not once but twice, the accompanying conversation hits pretty much all the notes he expected it to. What Meghan wants far more than a challenging opponent is to talk things through in her own mind, to find some way of understanding how the Governor could be so good to her—FOR her—yet not, in the end, a “good” person. Or an entirely bad one, either.

When he first met her, Meghan responded to trauma by curling up, turning inwards, blaming herself for everything from her Daddy leaving to the dead rising up, simultaneously the most and least powerful person in her own private world. Now, however, she both takes things as they come and applies logic to 'em, strategy, like she's figured out she has no control over anything but herself, her own reactions to this world's constant yet apparently random shit-storm. Which is impressive, and actually puts her ahead of Philip by a mile in terms of personal moral development, now Rick comes to think.

 _ _  
__“I miss him, still,” she tells Rick, fiercely, as she finally takes his king. “And I love him, too; don't care what anybody else says he did or was, not even Carl, 'cause it doesn't matter, not to me. I always will. Is that bad to say?”

 _ _  
__“No, honey—it's not bad, _or_ good. It just is.”

  
She pauses, takes a second, sniffs hard. Then concludes, at last—

  
“...that's what I thought.”

 _ _  
__As she starts putting the pieces away, however, a terrible wave of—something, he doesn't know what, not really: like twenty things all mixed together, diluted so the component parts almost don't register anymore, not in any truly useful way—suddenly sweeps up over Rick, shocking him silent; he sits there, jaw cupped in hand and shaking ever-so-slightly, hearing the blade of “his” Bowie knife shiver and click against the tabletop, unable to stop it. Not until Carl comes up behind him, at least, so quiet Rick barely knows he's there, and puts one hand on his shoulder.

  
“Dad...” he starts, hesitant, and Rick closes his eyes tight, feeling like his heart might burst.

  
***

“You've suffered too,” Carl finally admits, a month or so later, after they've gotten to know each other again. To which Rick replies, bitter: “Yeah, sure—but not like you, or Mom, or Shane. Not enough.”

  
“Not nearly, no,” his son agrees. “But...it'll have to do, I guess.”

  
Then leans forward and hugs him as Michonne, Meghan and Daryl all watch, tight enough to hurt.

  
***

 _ _  
__Almost a year after the prison, Rick has one last dream—that he opens his eyes before Michonne does, she still dozing in his arms, to find the Governor gazing down on him, exactly how he was the day they first met: two-eyed and brown-haired, all natty and plausible in that quilted vest he once liked so much he wore it almost every day, with his knife set on one hip, his gun on the other. Asking, without opening his mouth—

  
 _Hey Richard, remember that story I told you? One of many, I know, but I think if you put your mind to it, you might be able to recall nonetheless: 'bout when I was a kid, like twelve or thirteen, and one day I came home from school, found my old man and my mother standin' there glarin' at each other, like they wanted to bite each other's throats out..._

  
“I remember,” Rick says, thinking it's out loud but who can tell, in a damn dream? Not that it matters, anyway, considering the Governor just keeps on going...which is familiar too, Christ knows. Equally so and just as annoying as it ever was, even in current context.

  
 _...and Philip was there, just sat in between 'em, watching—looked at me like he thought I was gonna do something to break it up, though what the hell THAT would've been, I don't know. Anyhow, she tells the old man she's leavin' him, looks at Philip and says "this one you can keep, but_ him—" And here he points at himself. " _—HE's comin' with me, 'cause he ain't even yours." So the old man hits her across the face and says "woman, I ever catch you 'round here again I'm gonna kill you dead, and nobody'll ever find the body." Which he might've, I guess, for all I know...but I never did see her again, either way, which makes it kinda moot._

  
“What happened then?”  


_Well, nothin' she'd said made him like me any BETTER than before, so...about the same, basically. Which was hard, but so's life, generally; harder than we ever thought it'd be, these days. This all seems pretty small stuff, considering._

  
“Why tell me about it, then?”

  
 _Oh, you know: 'cause fuck her and fuck him, and screw my brother sideways, that's why—I mean, I don't think she was lyin', exactly, 'cause I've been taller than everybody I know since I was fifteen, but who really cares?_ He trails off, then gives a snort, re-collecting himself. Then concludes: _I'm more like her than I was either of them, but I wouldn't've come back, if I'd left first. Which is why I never did, when I finally got to._

  
 _Came back for Penny, though, didn't you?_ Rick halfway wants to remind him. But then again, Penny was HIS, first and foremost—that was her nature, her function, same way he shaped himself 'round being her Daddy. He'd've never given that up. Which probably makes him far more like that old man of his than he'd ever relish having to admit.

  
But what's it matter, any of this? Which is why he tells the Governor's ghost: “I said goodbye to you once already, Brian,” only to see what's left of him smile, replying, in his turn: _No you didn't._

( _Don't lie, Richard. It's unbecoming, 'specially in an honest man._ )

Which is true enough, Rick supposes—even Negan remarked on it; no time, he told himself, in the moment. But knowing even then how there was another element to the decision at work as well, one of pure punishment.

  
And: “Well...” he says, at last, “...maybe I just didn't _want_ to, then. How's about that?”

  
 _Sounds fair enough. I didn't deserve it, no more'n I deserved anything else from you right then, or ever. Which is why I've come to say goodbye, instead._

  
It's like a kick, a ghost-fist to the gut, and it makes Rick shiver, his missing hand cramp and spasm. Makes him clutch Michonne so fast she curls into him, complaining in her sleep, mouth catching hotly at his collarbone; at the sight, the Governor seems to smile, maybe recalling what that tastes like. Then lays one big hand on the door, calling back:

  
 _Don't have to think about me anymore at all, you don't want to; just feel free to go on ahead and forget me entirely, assuming you can. I give you my express permission._

_  
“_ Oh, _fuck_ you, Philip...I mean Brian...”

  
 _Sssh, Richard, sssh: we're done here, is what I'm tryin' to tell you. I'm done. See you later, maybe...or not._

  
( _I'm kinda hoping not._ )

  
Gone in a flash with the last word, leaving him alone, stranded in the waking world and Michonne's grip both: goddamn classic, really. But there's worse places to be than here by far, as Rick well-knows—Brian Blake too, perhaps, by now. If the Good Book's anything to go on.

  
“'Morning,” Michonne mumbles, barely opening her eyes.

  
“'Morning,” Rick Grimes agrees. And smiles right on back at her, nevertheless.

  
*** _  
_

That fall, a delegation arrives from someplace called Hilltop, Carl's old stomping grounds: Maggie Greene and her boyfriend Glenn, plus that grey-haired woman from Shane's group (Carol, her name is Carol) and a long-haired, bearded young guy Rick's never seen before, Paul Munroe, who everybody just calls “Jesus.” Morgan welcomes them in, sits 'em down over food then asks what brings 'em his way, at which point Maggie's eyes stray over to Rick, sitting between Michonne and Daryl and totally clean-shaven for the first time in years, painstakingly sharpening his knife-hand by the oil-lamp's uncertain light.

  
“We heard you were here, Rick,” she says. “Heard about Woodbury and the Governor, too.”

  
“Uh huh.”

  
“My father, you remember Hershel? He sends his condolences. Wants to know if it's true, what else we heard...is Negan really dead?”

  
“As a doornail, yeah.”

  
“And _you_ killed him?”

 _  
_"Me and the Governor, that's right. It was kinda a joint effort—could say it got him killed, only he was dying anyways, really. One way or the other, though, I couldn't've done it without him.”

  
To which Maggie, Glenn and Carol just nod, but Jesus whistles, eyebrows hiking. “Man, seriously—that's a _big_ help already, 'cause back where were from, we're getting new Savior splinter-groups comin' by almost every other week, trying to shake us down, and they all claim Negan's still alive. But it was obvious they were probably bulshitting, 'cause the whole system's kinda collapsed...” He pauses, before adding: “Could really use some help building it back up, though.”

  
Rick laughs a bit, shaking his head. “Not all too sure what you think I can do for you, Mister Munroe. I mean—I'm just a broken down old ex-sheriff's deputy with one hand, better known for being some dead man's boyfriend than for anything else, really. Wouldn't back me in a fight, myself.”

  
Michonne hisses. “ _Jackass,_ ” she snaps. “You ran a whole damn town, Rick Grimes; kept it going seven years plus, made sure these people got here safe when it collapsed. Killed Negan with your own two hands—”

“— _helped_ kill Negan, you mean—”

  
Daryl chiming in, now: “Whatever; man's dead all the same, ain't he? And better yet...you got us.”

  
Rick looks at him, then her. Sweeps his gaze 'round the rest of the room and sees people nodding, almost everywhere: Lilly, Tara, Meghan, Carl; Bob Stookey, Sasha, Tyreese. Caesar Martinez, giving him the thumbs-up from further back, with a good twenty per cent of Woodbury's infrastructure rallied 'round him. Andrea, with Dale in her lap. Morgan Jones.

  
They really do forgive him, even if he'll never quite forgive himself. And that...that means something. It'll have to do.

  
Rick sighs, and turns back to Jesus. Allowing as he does—

  
“Well...we can _discuss_ it, I guess.” _  
_

To which Jesus smiles, with surprising charm. And replies: "Yeah, sounds good. Let's."

 

THE END


End file.
